A human factors framework and study of the effect of nursing workload on patient safety and employee quality of working life. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • BACKGROUND: Nursing workload is increasingly thought to contribute to both nurses' quality of working life and quality/safety of care. Prior studies lack a coherent model for conceptualising and measuring the effects of workload in healthcare. In contrast, we conceptualised a human factors model for workload specifying workload at three distinct levels of analysis and having multiple nurse and patient outcomes. METHODS: To test this model, we analysed results from a cross-sectional survey of a volunteer sample of nurses in six units of two academic tertiary care paediatric hospitals. RESULTS: Workload measures were generally correlated with outcomes of interest. A multivariate structural model revealed that: the unit-level measure of staffing adequacy was significantly related to job dissatisfaction (path loading=0.31) and burnout (path loading=0.45); the task-level measure of mental workload related to interruptions, divided attention, and being rushed was associated with burnout (path loading=0.25) and medication error likelihood (path loading=1.04). Job-level workload was not uniquely and significantly associated with any outcomes. DISCUSSION: The human factors engineering model of nursing workload was supported by data from two paediatric hospitals. The findings provided a novel insight into specific ways that different types of workload could affect nurse and patient outcomes. These findings suggest further research and yield a number of human factors design suggestions.

publication date

  • January 1, 2011

Research

keywords

  • Nurses
  • Patient Safety
  • Workload

Identity

PubMed Central ID

  • PMC3058823

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 79953803462

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1080/01449290601138245

PubMed ID

  • 21228071

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 20

issue

  • 1