[Study of tasks performed by nurses in a teaching hospital]

The purpose of this study was to analyze tasks performed by nurses at hospitalization units (maternity, general medicine, surgical and pediatric) in a training hospital in order to better know which factors make it difficult to outline their role as well as the meaning of their actions. It's a descriptive-type qualitative research. Twenty nurses were interviewed following a half-structured script. Nurses perceive that they perform help-providing tasks more frequently, followed by administrative tasks, dealing with the information system and educational tasks. The lack of skilled human resources, essentially nurses, infrastructure, valorization of nursing care and its workers, work organization and integration among members of the multi-disciplinary staff were identified as work-hampering factors.