Scope of nursing care in Polish intensive care units.
BACKGROUND
The TISS-28 scale, which may be used for nursing staff scheduling in ICU, does not reflect the complete scope of nursing resulting from varied cultural and organizational conditions of individual systems of health care.


OBJECTIVE
The objective of the study was an attempt to provide an answer to the question what scope of nursing care provided by Polish nurses in ICU does the TISS-28 scale reflect?


METHODS
The methods of working time measurement were used in the study. For the needs of the study, 252 hours of continuous observation (day-long observation) and 3.697 time-schedule measurements were carried out.


RESULTS
The total nursing time was 4125.79 min. (68.76 hours), that is, 60.15% of the total working time of Polish nurses during the period analyzed. Based on the median test, the difference was observed on the level of χ(2) = 16945.8,P < 0.001 between the nurses' workload resulting from performance of activities qualified into the TISS-28 scale and load resulting from performance of interventions within the scopes of care not considered in this scale in Polish ICUs.


CONCLUSIONS
The original version of the TISS-28 scale does not fully reflect the workload among Polish nurses employed in ICUs.
Chair of Development in Nursing, Faculty of Nursing and Health Sciences, Medical University, U1. Staszica 4-6, 20-081 Lublin, Poland.
Mariusz
M
Wysokiński
Chair and Department of Management in Nursing, Faculty of Nursing and Health Sciences, Medical University, Lublin, Poland.
Anna
A
Ksykiewicz-Dorota
Chair of Development in Nursing, Faculty of Nursing and Health Sciences, Medical University, U1. Staszica 4-6, 20-081 Lublin, Poland.
Wiesław
W
Fidecki
D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units; D009732:Nursing Care; D011044:Poland; D016526:Workload