Allocation of nursing time

The purpose of this study was to examine the allocation of nursing time to various activities of registered and assistant nurses during the day shift. Twenty-three registered (RN) and eighteen assistant nurses (AN) working in medical and surgical wards of five large hospitals were studied. The findings have shown that the most frequent activities performed were; indirect care representing 35.6% of the time, direct care representing 23.8% of the time, personal activities representing 16.8% of the time, and direct nursing interventions representing 8.2% of the time. Cross-tabulation revealed that RNs provided direct care less frequently and indirect care more frequently than ANs (25.3 activities per RN and 27.5 per AN, 62.1 activities per RN and 32.6 per AN, respectively). Many indirect care activities were found to be the responsibility of the head nurse (64), secretary (465), and others (104). Less expected results were the minimal amounts of time spent on both education and research activities (1.3% and 0.0% respectively). Nurse managers have to free nurses from subsidiary work and to find mechanisms to distribute nursing valuable time more efficiently.