Workload of nurses: observational study of indirect care activities/interventions

Observe the workflow of nurses in hospitalization units identifying indirect care activities/interventions; measure the frequency and average time spent in performing them; and to verify the associations between average time of the activities interventions grouped into categories and per hospitalization unit.

Observational exploratory study using the timed technique. It was conducted in medical, surgical and specialized clinic units of a teaching hospital in the northwest of São Paulo Brazil, with 16 attending nurses as participants.

90 hours of observation were performed, of which 58% (52 hours and 10 minutes) were related to indirect care activities of the patients. The most frequent activities/interventions were: "Communication" - 1,852 (44.1%), mean 34.6 (SD = 54); "Walking" - 1,023 (24.3%), mean 22 (SD = 49.2); and "Documentation" - 663 (15.8%), mean 82.7 (SD = 144.4).

These findings favor a redesign of the work process and foster the need to update and refine the current workload measurement instruments.