Birhanu Darega
Background: Quality of nursing care is nursing response to physical, psychological, social and spiritual needs of patients in carrying purposes. Stress because of heavy workload, inappropriate tasks, insufficient resources, poor management, shortage of health care professionals, problem identification, resolution and prevention are the challenges to provide quality of care in developing countries. A few studies were present that deals about the quality of care provided for the patients in inpatient departments.
Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the perception of nurses and patients regarding quality of nursing care practices in in-patient departments of Bale Zone Hospitals, Southeast Ethiopia.
Methods: Facility-based descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in April 2014. From four (Goba, Ginnir, Dallomanna and Robe) hospitals of the Bale Zone, Robe and Goba Hospitals were selected by simple random sampling. Forty three Nurses who worked in inpatient departments and 403 patients admitted in inpatient departments (medical ward, surgical ward, pediatric ward and obstetric - gynecology ward) were included in the study. Self-administered for nurses and face-to-face interview for patients by using structured questionnaires were used to collect the data. The collected data had been analyzed descriptively by using SPSS version 16.0 and individual variables were summarized using frequency and percentage and then the results were presented by using narrative, tables, charts and graphs.
Results: The response rates were 100% for nurse and 98.5% for patients’ participants. According to this study, majority of respondents, 29(67.4%) nurses and 358 (90.2%) of patients rated the nursing care the hospital provided to patients was good. The study revealed that 75 (18.9 %) of patients and 37 (86%) of nurses agreed that shortage of nurses was the factor that affect nursing care. Again, 94 (23.7%) of patients and 13 (30.2%) of nurses agreed that overcrowding of practicing students in each ward affect the quality of care patients received. Similarly, 59 (14.9%) of patients and 40 (93%) of nurses agreed that heavy workload to nurses was their perceived reason that affect quality of nursing care. The technical competences of nurses while care delivering, keeping privacy of patients and giving chance to talk for patients were perceived as a good, very good and excellent by majority of participants. The communication between nurses and patients were complied by nearly half of nurses, 20 (46.5%) and 58 (14.6%) of patients as other factors that affected the quality of care they received. Moreover, 91 (22.9%) of patients and 17 (39.5%) of nurses agreed that nurses poor working condition was also the reason in hindering quality of nursing cares.
Conclusions: In this study, the nursing care provided to patients in the selected hospitals was good. It was found that shortage of resources , and environmental interruptions, nursing work overload, overcrowding due to too many practicing students, communication between nurses and patients, and technical competences of nurses while care delivering were the major reasons for why quality of nursing care practice were undermined. The hospital should take into consideration the above listed problems to increase quality of nursing care delivered for patients that both nurses and patients were complaining. In addition, nurse’s administrator recommended considering nurse to patient ratio to decrease work overload that can affect quality of nursing care. The nurses should have to communicate with the patients and give freedom to talk for patients.
