Trial Lecture – time and place
See Trial Lecture.
Adjudication committee
- First opponent: Professor Kaija Saranto, University of East Finland
- Second opponent: Associate Professor Gunilla Hollman Frisman, Linköpings University
- Third member and chair of the evaluation committee: Professor II Johan Ræder, University of Oslo
Chair of the Defence
Professor Emeritus Ida Torun Bjørk, University of Oslo
Principal Supervisor
Rector Lisbeth Maria Fagerstrøm, Åbo Akademi
Summary
The aim was to test: the reliability and validity of the Nursing Activities Score (NAS) in relation to nursing intensity (NI) and nurse staffing costs and to examine: how the use of the NAS by critical care nurses can provide a tool for hospital administrators in Norwegian Intensive Care Units (ICUs). The instrument NAS assess nursing activities, including patients’ critical care needs and quantifies workload. The study method was a quantitative observational design and used in three studies and data were collected from internal quality registers, patients’ records and the Norwegian Intensive Care Registry. The study samples were 235/219/ 6,390 patients. The NAS tool was found to be reliable and valid in relation to the assessment of NI and emerging from the confirmatory factor analysis, a reduced three-factor model based on ICU patients’ NAS scores, with the latent factors “relationship”, “prevention” and “treatment”, confirmed the conceptual model of critical care nursing. The NAS is an applicable tool in identification of patients’ care needs in critical care and can be used to describe nurse staffing costs in Norwegian ICUs. Hospital administrators can use the NAS to make budgetary decisions for ICU contexts.
Additional information
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