title: Nursing workload: an unquantifiable entity.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In the increasingly prominent drives towards cost containment and efficiency nursing is under pressure to justify its value to healthcare. On the surface nursing workload assessment methods would appear to offer a means to quantify the nursing input to patient care.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To examine the validity of nursing workload methods with respect to nursing practice and nursing knowledge.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Previous studies and the conclusions of subject reviews have cast doubt on the reliability and validity of most methods and indicate that they have no clear theoretical base.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  It appears that nursing is more concerned with knowledge processing and nurses' intentions than just with the activities of caring. It is suggested that patients control the time element of nursing care. The need for nursing workload information, despite its validity problems, is discussed and a pragmatic solution is suggested.
authors.affiliation: University of West of England, Bristol, UK.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hughes
mesh_terms: D003953:Diagnosis-Related Groups / Q000145:classification; D004645:Empathy; D006801:Humans; D007587:Job Description; D009042:Motivation; D015401:Nursing Administration Research / Q000379:methods*; D009741:Nursing Staff, Hospital / Q000523:psychology / Q000600:supply & distribution*; D010561:Personnel Staffing and Scheduling / Q000458:organization & administration*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013996:Time and Motion Studies; D016526:Workload