Reference no: EM132923491

Staffing by Acuity and Improved Job Satisfaction in Nurses

Perceived workload including patient acuity and dependency as well as staffing has been seen to impact job satisfaction in nurses. Research suggests that nurses experiencing a heavy workload are 3.5 times more likely to report emotional exhaustion and lower job satisfaction (MacPhee et al., 2017). Nurses regularly report high levels of job dissatisfaction due to workload related to inequalities in the patient assignment distribution. The nurse-to-patient ratio design, which is used by many organizations, is unable to fully how many patients a single nurse can provide care for due to unexpected patient needs. An acuity tool helps identify the needs of each patient based upon assessments by the nurse and when utilized may help regulate the number of nurses per shift based on patient needs. This has been seen to improve nursing satisfaction with the standard of care provided and enhance their performance level (Al-Dweik & Ahmad, 2018). The implementation of an acuity tool has been shown to create a more equitable nursing assignment resulting in increased nursing satisfaction (Ageiz & Al-Mageed, 2020).

Problem Statement

Nursing workload is leading to decreased job satisfaction and burnout among nurses.

Research Purpose

The purpose of this research is to determine if staffing by patient acuity rather than nurse-to-patient ratio improves job satisfaction in nurses providing direct patient care.

Question i: Does staffing by acuity (I) rather than nurse-to-patient ratio (C) increase job satisfaction (O) in nurses providing direct patient care (P)?