Assessment of perceived impact of nurses’ workload on patient care at a University Teaching Hospital - Kigali

Abstract

Background: Nurses face work overload worldwide and this is the single largest cause of poor quality care globally as it is supported by several studies which revealed that one the major problems associated with health care systems is extreme workload of hospital nurses and this has serious consequences to patient care. This study aims to explore causes on nurses’ work overload and its adverse outcomes on patient care. Research Methods: This study used a quantitative approach, and a descriptive cross-sectional design was used; this study was conducted among registered nurses (n= 209) working in all departments of University Teaching Hospital (CHUK). Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire consisting of three sections eliciting information about the participants’ characteristics, level of perceived nurses’ workload, level of patient care at CHUK, data were collected in period of two months from 13rd February to 12 April 2017 from Monday to Wednesday, and data were organized and analyzed with SPSS version 20. Results: The findings indicated that 33(16%) of participants perceived that nurses had low level of workload and 176(84%) of participants perceived that nurses have high workload, 182(87%) of participants had low level of patient care and 27(13%) had high level of patient care, results also indicate that there not significant relationship between nurses’ workload and patient as there is a very weak positive relationship of 0.005. Conclusion: This study sheds light on the impact of nurses’ work overload on patients. It has also revealed important issues affecting patients’ life and quality of care as perceived by the nurses as the primary caregivers. Reducing nurses’ work overload and recruiting nurses’ assistants

to carry out non nursing tasks can promote patients outcomes and increase quality of nursing care.