ABSTRACT
The purpose of this paper is to provide a clear definition of nursing care quality that contributes to the formulation, application, and measurement of quality nursing outcomes for patients, organisations, and nursing staff. It also indicates the manner in which, by using the definition, empirically based operational definitions can be developed for different operational environments and settings. The study employed a concept analysis methodology to extract terms, attributes, antecedents, and consequences (outcomes) from relevant literature databases. The analysis identified nine attributes: nurse competency performance, met nursing care needs, good experiences for patients, good leadership, staff characteristics, preconditions of care, physical environment, progress of nursing process, and cooperation with relatives. Antecedences include nurse-staffing levels, positive practice environment, and nursing turnover. Consequences include patient safety, patient satisfaction, nursing outcomes, nurse satisfaction, and budget management. Because of the breadth and depth of modern nursing practice, further research and development of the concept is required.
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this literature review is to explore the relationship between nurse staffing, nurse job satisfaction, nurse practice environment, burnout, and nursing care quality through a consideration of what is meant by perceptions of nursing care quality. Different people define nursing care quality in many ways. It is complex, multi-faceted and multi-dimensional, and attempts to assess, monitor, evaluate and improve nursing care quality have evolved over a number of years. Of particular interest is the way in which changes in nurse staffing, nurse job satisfaction, nurse practice environment, and burnout may affect the quality of nursing care delivery. A search was conducted using the CINAHL, Medline and Embase databases, HINARI, Science Direct, Google, and PubMed. The terms searched included quality of health care; nursing care quality; nurse job satisfaction; nurse practice environment; burnout; and nurse staffing. Papers were included for their relevance to the field of enquiry. The original search was conducted in 2003 and updated in 2004. Quality of care is a complex, multi-dimensional concept, which presents researchers with a challenge when attempting to evaluate it. Many different tools have assessed nursing care quality. In addition, the review found that there were relationships between nurse staffing, nurse job satisfaction, nurse practice environment, burnout, and nursing care qualit.