title: [Nursing activities score: differences in nursing workload in three intensive care units].
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The activities that impact on the nursing workload in an intensive care unit have not been described.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To retrospectively analyze the nursing workload in the three intensive care units-ICU (general, neurosurgery and cardiac surgery) of the same department with the Nursing Activities Score (NAS) to describe the nursing interventions that mostly impact on the workload.
  
  
  METHODS
  Retrospective observational study. Patients admitted from January 2006 to December 2012 were included in the study. The NAS was completed every 24 hours around 6 am.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Patients included in the study were 7588; their mean NAS score was 61.7 ± 19.02%; 75.9 ± 1.44 in General ICU, 61.6 ± 2.46 Neuro ICU, 62.5 ± 3.06 in the Cardiosurgical ICU. The items that mostly impacted on the nursing workload were the need of monitoring and titration, the hygiene procedures, and the Mobilization and positioning. The three procedures were performed with different frequencies in the three ICUs.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results confirm that the minimum required care in ICUs is around 950 minutes/day. The differences observed in the three ICUs were determined by the different clinical severity and caring complexity of the patients.
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lucchini
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Elli
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bambi
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Becattini
authors.forename: Stefania
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Vanini
authors.forename: Chiara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Piantanida
authors.forename: Cosimo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Iacca
authors.forename: Domenica
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sartori
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units; D007558:Italy; D008875:Middle Aged; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic / Q000451:nursing*; D024802:Nurse's Role; D009732:Nursing Care; D009741:Nursing Staff, Hospital; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D016526:Workload