The Effect of Staff Nurse Shortage on Patients’ Care

This study aims to identify the effects of staff nurse shortage on patients’ care. The study question, in this case, will be “does nurse shortage have effects on patient care?”. The research design will be quantitative and a questionnaire will be used as the primary source of data collection technique. The project will aid in showing that lack of sufficient nurses make patients experience some of the things that may not please them.

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NRS1302
Understanding Research of Practice
Student name: Fatima Mohammed Al Saedi
FC1100094
Semester 1
2018-2019
1366 Words
The Effect of Staff Nurse Shortage on Patients’ Care

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Background
The number of staff nurses is a critical factor in determining factors that might affect the
quality of health care services in healthcare facilities (Daniela, 2013). Many studies
conducted on this topic argued that nursing shortage impedes the ability to practice nursing
care, affect professional ethics that guide nurses’ career, and put the lives of patients at risks.
Patients place their hopes on medical practitioners to get quality services and therefore when
nurses are working extra duties due to understaffed numbers, the risk of performing medical
errors increase which leads to alleviation of patients’ suffer (Hyeonmi & Kihye, 2018). For
example, performing low quality nursing care put the patients under risks of infections,
injuries, death, or they may even get discharged without proper education concerning how to
take care of their health conditions.
Various researchers have also affirmed that the presence of nurses increase the quality
of healthcare services offered in health facilities. When nursing workforce is understaffed,
patients might be risk of being challenged by illnesses because proper services are not
provided (Deborah, 2012). This is the reason why hospitals who have shortage in nursing
workforce report a high number of death rates than those equipped with a sufficient number
of these professionals (Lisa, 2015). The purpose of this study will be to identify the effects of
staff nurse shortage on patients’ care. The study question, in this case, will be “does nurse
shortage have effects on patient care?
Literature review
According to Jaymeen (2018), inadequate nurse staffing increases the risk of
preventable patient harm because it makes the hospital to lack workforce which can provide
the required healthcare series to the patients. The role of nurses is primarily to take care of
patients, an insufficient number of these professionals make patients to experience challenges

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because some of them have little understanding on how to take care of themselves when they
are sick (Hyeonmi & Kihye, 2018). For example, with the knowledge which nurses obtain
from the courses they attend, they are able to assist the patients to take medication as
prescribed by doctors, but when they are not present or are few, patients may lack people to
help them take these medications and end up taking the wrong dosage, hence putting their
lives at risk.
Deena and Olga (2016) asserted that understaffed nurses can lead to employee
burnout because being few will result in nurses working for long hours. Nurses who are
extremely exhausted, as a result of working for long hours, are prone to making mistakes
when it comes to patient care (Kurt, 2014). Some of these mistakes may include
administration of wrong medication dosage and wrong dressing of wounds.
In incidences where the ratio of nurses is too low as compared to patients, research
has indicated that patients are forced to remain in the health facilities for longer than
necessary (Deborah, 2012). The reason why this happens is that they fail to be monitored
from time to time as required, a factor which puts them at the risk of developing various
conditions such as bed sores and other serious medical issues.
Research methodology
The issue of understaffed nursing has been in existence for some years with some of
the hospitals using this strategy as one of the ways of cutting costs (Ruth, 2016). Although it
assists in cost minimization, it has various implications which may affect patients, nurses and
other stakeholders. To properly understand whether nurse understaffing put patients at risk,
the researcher conducted an investigation taking a target population of 7 respondent in a
national health centre. The reason for choosing the 7 nurses to be respondents was that the

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hospital was big and therefore had large number of nurses and therefore it would not be
possible to obtain information from each one of them.
According to Jaymeen (2018), it is crucial to maintain confidentiality during research
to ensure that the information obtained from research participants is not improperly divulged.
Therefore, in this case, the researcher informed the respondents that their information will
only be used for study purposes, and therefore encouraged them to provide honest
information. To enhance privacy, the researcher informed the responded not to write their
names or any other detail which may reveal their identity.
The research design, in this case, will be quantitative and A Questionnaire will be used as the
primary source of data collection technique. The questionnaire will be self-administered and
focus mainly on attaining as much information as possible to ensure the right results. To
allow the sufficient time for going through the questionnaires, the researcher will give them
to the respondents and collect them after 2 days. This will play a key role in enabling the
respondents to have sufficient time as most of them were busy in accomplishing their
professional duties and also addressing their family affairs.
To overcome any possible bias when collecting data from the study participants, the
study will collect data from both genders and it will ensure that the sample size will be
composed of both male and female nurses. The researcher will also ensure that the time
allocated for responding to the questionnaires will be sufficient and equal to all respondents,
and the questions are clear and straightforward.
The study will use descriptive statistics such as percentages, ranking, scales, and
averages, and also coded into (SPSS) statistical package for social scientists. For
presentation, bar graphs and pie charts were used.

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Broader implication
This project will play a crucial role in enabling healthcare practitioners to understand
that nurses form an integral role in the provision of healthcare services and therefore their
presence should be sufficient. According to George (2015), one of the reasons why a person
is admitted to a health facility is to receive 24/7 nursing care. When there are few nurses with
a high number of patients, the chances of not receiving care as required are always high and
this make the patients to suffer or even die of diseases which can be easily treated. This
research will enable people to understand that lack of a sufficient number of nurses also
makes patients to live in improper personal hygiene, a factor which put them at the risks of
developing other conditions which may significantly affect their health.
The project will also aid in showing that lack of sufficient nurses make patients to
experience some of the things that may not please them. For example, it will assist in
understanding that when a hospital has few numbers of nurses, the chances of patients staying
in the hospital for longer than required are always high. It will also make them realize that
staying in hospitals for long affects the patients in different ways, like for example, it can
make them to develop bed sores and other infections.
Additionally, the project will assist in knowing that understaffed nursing also make
nurses to overlook some of the things which they should undertake, such as enhancing
personal hygiene of the patients, encouraging the family members to show support to the
patient and also educating the patients on how to use medication (Rhoda, 2014). These

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factors may put patients at risks because in most cases they have little knowledge about
health issues and mostly depend on nurses to help them understand what they don’t know.
References
George, K. F. (2015). Retail Clinics: The Bellin Experience. Frontiers of Health Services
Management, 31(3), 45-65.
Ruth, T. M. (2016). They Know Me Here: Patients' Perspectives on Their Nursing Home
Experiences. Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 21(1), 131-142.
Deena, C & Olga, K. Y. (2016). Why Causal Inference Matters to Nurses: The Case
of Nurse Staffing and Patient Outcomes. Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 21(2),
78-89.
Maureen, R & Lisa, B. M. (2015). Attributes and Qualifications of Successful Rural Nurse
Preceptors: Preceptors' Perspectives. The Qualitative Report, 20(2), 34-43.
Rhoda, A. M. (2014). New Roles and Shifting Priorities for Nurses. Frontiers of Health
Services Management, 31(2), 34-45.
Daniela, A. (2013). Emotional Work and Diversity in
Clinical Placements of Nursing Students. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 45(2), 14-
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Kurt, A. B. (2014). Individualized Health Care: Moving from Population Health to Care of
the One. Inquiry, 51(1), 45-54.
Hyeonmi, C & Kihye, H. (2018). Associations among the Nursing Work Environment and
Health-Promoting Behaviors of Nurses and Nursing Performance Quality: A
Multilevel Modeling Approach. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 50(4), 43-56.
Jaymeen, L. J. (2018). Engaging More Nurses in Cancer Preventive Care: Challenges and
Opportunities. Journal of Healthcare Management, 63(4), 243-254.
Deborah, P. (2012). "To Help a Million Sick, You Must Kill a Few Nurses": Nurses'
Occupational Health, 1890-1914. Nursing History Review, 20, 89-103.