Workloads in Australian emergency departments a descriptive study

This study aimed to identify the current workload of clinical nurses, managers and educators in Australian Emergency Departments according to the classification of the department Additionally the relationship of experienced to inexperienced clinical staff was examined.

A descriptive research method utilising a survey distributed to 394 Australian Emergency departments with a 21% response rate.

Nursing workloads were calculated and a ratio of nurse to patient was established. The ratios included nurse to patient, management and educators to clinical staff. Additionally the percentage of junior to senior clinical staff was also calculated.

Across all categories of emergency departments the mean nurse:patient ratios were 1:15 (am shift), 1:7 (pm shift) and 1:4 (night shift). During this period an average of 17.1% of attendances were admitted to hospital. There were 27 staff members for each manager and 23.3 clinical staff for each educator. The percentage of junior staff rostered ranged from 10% to 38%.

Emergency nurses cannot work under such pressure as it may compromise the care given to patients and consequently have a negative effect on the nurse personally. However, emergency nurses are dynamically adjusting to the workload. Such conditions as described in this study could give rise to burnout and attrition of experienced emergency nurses as they cannot resolve the conflict between workload and providing quality nursing care.