Intensity of nursing care: workloads or individual complexity?
Section: Healthcare Management
How to quote
Juvé Udina ME et al. Intensidad de cuidados enfermeros: ¿cargas de trabajo o complejidad individual? Metas de Enferm oct 2010; 13(8): 6-14
Authors
1María Eulàlia Juvé Udina, 2Cristina Matud Calvo, 3Sara Farrero Muñoz, 4Hermelina Jiménez Pérez, 5Ester Rodríguez Gías
Position
1Coordinadora de Enfermería de Hospitales. Instituto Catalán de la Salud (Barcelona). 2Supervisora de Enfermería del Hospital Universitario de Bellvitge. Gabinete Técnico Enfermero de Innovación, Metodología y Sistemas de Información. Barcelona. 3Supervisora de Enfermería. UCI Pediátrica. Hospital Universitario Vall d'Hebron, Barcelona (España). 4Supervisora de Enfermería del Hospital Universitario Germans Trias i Pujol, Barcelona. 5Adjunta de Enfermería del Hospital Joan XXIII, Tarragona.
Contact address
María Eulàlia Juvé Udina. Instituto Catalán de la Salud C/ Gran Vía de les Corts Catalanes, 587-589. 08007 Barcelona.
Contact email: ejuve@gencat.cat
Abstract
Method: a qualitative design of participative research-action was employed with the direct analysis method for the content of brief stories of participants and nurses of the hospitals of the Catalan Institute of Health, on cases in which they had experienced situations of complexity. Sample sufficiency was established based on the information’s saturation criterion. Participants were offered the chance to participate in a series of workshops/discussion sessions that were carried out over the course of 18 months. One of the researchers collected participants’ opinions in written form, while the other one moderated the debate and asked reflexive questions on the proposal’s content. Later, participants were asked to form small groups in order discuss and record in an individual form brief stories of cases in which they had experienced situations of complexity.
Results: 287 brief stories were included in the final analysis. The individual factors of care complexity include five domains: (1) evolutionary, (2) mental and cognitive, (3) psychoemotional, (4) sociocultural and (5) comorbidity and complications. The individual complexity of care is structured in sources, factors and specifications.
Conclusions: of the five complexity axes identified in Safford’s Vectorial Method of Complexity, four coincide in part with the analysis presented. The architecture of care complexity should include a multiperspective consideration, including the domains of individual, therapeutic-procedural and organizational complexity axes.
Keywords:
care complexity; Care intensity; healthcare management; participative research-action; qualitative research; Vectorial Model of Complexityworkloads
Versión en Español
Título:
Intensidad de cuidados enfermeros: ¿cargas de trabajo o complejidad individual?
