Average Time Analysis of Direct Nursing Activities of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery Patients: A Case Study of The Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery Intensive Care Unit of Ramathibodi Hospital

Abstract

This descriptive research aimed to analyze average time of direct nursing activities given to cardiovascular and thoracic surgery patients. The samples were 22 professional nurses who had been working in the cardiovascular and thoracic surgery intensive care unit, Ramathibodi Hospital. The research instruments were composed of a questionnaire of personal characteristics of professional nurse, a recording form of personal characteristics of patient, the Simplified Therapeutic Intervention Scoring System (TISS-28), and a recording form of time of direct nursing activities. Data were collected from July 21 to August 19, 2014. Statistics used for data analysis included frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation.

The research results revealed that the largest number of critical patients was the patients of category 3 (90.49%), while the average patients for each nursing work shift was 5.42. The longest average time that professional nurses used to provide direct nursing activities was for critical patients of category 3 (393.34 minutes/person/day, SD = 77.78), while the shortest average time was for critical patients of category 2 (306 minutes/person/day, SD = 78.49). The work shift in which the professional nurses spent the largest amount of time caring for all types of patients was “afternoon”, and the direct nursing activities which consumed the largest amount of time was the “nursing practice” category.

This research suggested that the administrators should add more professional nurses to afternoon work shifts, set up an effective referral system to be ready for prompt admittance, and there should be training for holistic care of children in critical care for professional nurses in order to increase the knowledge and skill of nursing care.