Support for hospital patients and associated factors

During hospitalization patients need support from nursing staff. To improve the delivery of support during hospitalization, it is necessary to know more about how patient background factors and organizational factors are associated with patients` perceived access to support.

This study describes hospital patients' perceived access to emotional and informational support from nursing staff. A further concern is with the associations of patient background factors (e.g. age, education, mode of admission) and various organizational factors (e.g. nurse to bed ratio, skill mix) with support.

A quantitative research approach was applied. The data were collected from patients (n = 731) at a Finnish university hospital using a specially developed scale. The sample of hospital patients was drawn from the population by stratified random sampling. In addition, data were retrieved from the hospital's electronic database.

During their stay in hospital, patients felt they received more emotional than informational support. Outpatients and elective inpatients reported receiving more support than inpatients and emergency patients. Having a named nurse was also positively associated with access to support. Staffing levels showed a positive association with patient access to support. On the other hand, the availability of support deteriorated when the number of emergency inpatients and the unit workload increased.

Steps are needed to improve the provision of informational support to nursing care patients and to assess the methods of support provision. Patient support can also be improved by adopting the named nurse system. There is a significant association between organizational factors and patient access to support, which warrants further investigation.