Qualitative and quantitative study methods in nursing practice with ethical considerations

Nurse Study Review

Vahey et al. (2004) research indicated the importance of investigating the role of environment and clinical situation for both nurse performance and patient satisfaction. This study is a quantitative approach to investigating these topics as it sought to find correlations between these variables.

The article is premised on the idea that nurses employed in hospitals are experiencing greater workloads resulting in career fatigue and burnout. The article incorporated past research on these topics and suggested that "Indeed, more than 40% of hospital staff nurses score in the high range for job-related burnout, and more than 1 in 5 hospital staff nurses say they intend to leave their hospital jobs within 1 year. The understaffing of nurses and the overwork of health professionals in hospitals are ranked by consumers as major threats to patient safety, and more patients are bringing their own caregivers to the hospital with them."

The significance to nursing of this problems is explicit. By improving the ability of nurses in their clinical environment, an effect should be noticed by patient satisfaction on the other end of the spectrum. The objective of this study was to determine if there is a correlation between nurse burnout and patient satisfaction while exploring the impact of the features of the environment and organizational climate in which they work.

Methods of Study

The study used a survey from 1991 to derive data from patients and nurses. For this study 820 nurses were used and 621 patients were used to gather the information. The information collected from this survey incorporated the Nursing Work Index and Maslach Burnout Inventory, while the patients survey was measured using the La Monica Oberst Patient Satisfaction Scale. There are several key measurements that the study aimed to divide and organize its findings. These included the Nurse Work Environment, Hospital and Unit Characteristics, Nurse Burnout and Intent to Leave, Patient Satisfaction, and Nurse and Patient Characteristics.

Results

The results of the study were not surprising in many ways, but leads to common sense about job performance within a clinical setting. The stress of nurses jobs in being factored into the performance of job is obvious at many levels. The details of this study however reveal key information that can help bring a deeper and more wise approach to the subject of nurse burnout and the amount of patients that they must treat in their daily routine.

The study in its findings, revealed that emotional exhaustion and lack of personal accomplishment played a large role in their ability to achieve some level of professional satisfaction within their work environment. The article noted "the most obvious implications of these findings are that changes in hospital nurses' work environments would appear to offer the opportunity to simultaneously improve patient satisfaction and stabilize the nurse workforce, because emotionally exhausted nurses are substantially more likely to report intentions to leave their jobs."

The article emphasized the importance of nurses' feelings of low personal accomplishments and depersonalization as a factor in motivation and successful results. "although we know that nurses' feelings of personal accomplishment are important to patient satisfaction, our work to date does not reveal the organizational features that account for perceptions of personal accomplishment." While it is clear from this research that the environment itself plays a role in the success of the professional nurse, it is also clear that it is not known how the environment specifically plays that role. The article suggests that each individual organization needs to determine the specific requirements that address the problems of the nurses themselves.

Ethical Considerations