Understaffed Nursing Problems in Hospitals - Research Proposal Example

Research Proposal • Introduction: Nurses are always required to support and fulfill the needs to patients and health care sectors. Nursing staff forms the major component of the hospital as they have greatest responsibility of providing firsthand services to the patients. Today, quality of patients' care is declining due to shortage of nursing staff in the hospitals. This is a serious issue of discussion and has diverted attention of many intellectuals towards the need of retaining high quality nursing staff and better environment of hospitals (Ellis & Hartley, 2004). It is noticeable that nursing shortage has become a global issue that has put patients care at higher risk and residents are complaining of poor care. It has been found that some nursing homes are highly understaffed that have endangered the lives of patients (Ellis & Hartley, 2004). Thousands of nurses are needed in nursing homes to address the health issues of patients who need assistance to recover from chronic diseases. But, they are losing hope and facing more health complexities due to shortage of nursing staff. Some evidence based major complexities that emerge from lack of nurses' assistance include hypertension, catheterized patients, urinary infections, poor feeding resulting in malnutrition, dehydration and most prominently decrease in participation rate of patients in healthy activities (Siela, 2009). Nursing staff are responsible for taking care of patients during medicines intake or meal time and their absence lead patients to more complex health conditions. • Problem and Problem Statement: Present literature over closely related issues shows that no study has contributed to highlight the factors, which are responsible for causing understaffed nursing problems in hospitals. • Significance of the Problem: Lack of identification of responsible factors is a crucial issue and its solution can lead to resolve problems of understaffed nursing sector. This problem has significant importance as it will help practitioners and researchers recognize the areas, which need proper attention and modification to provide standard healthcare services to the patients. Additionally, a research based study covering an important issue related to understaffed nursing department might also contribute to open gate and beneficial opportunities for those individuals, who seek to build up the career in the field of nursing. • Search terms: Nursing shortage impact on patients' health and standard of hospitals seems to be an efficient search term to find out related studies conducted in past. Also, other terms like understaffed nursing, shortcomings of nursing services and nurse staff standards would also help researchers to find out relevant data. • Summary of two literature review articles: A study conducted by Buerhaus, Donelan & Ulrich in 2005 aimed to find out the rate and impact of registered nurses in the hospitals. Two years survey has been conducted for this research in order to explore the shortage of workforce and its negative influences on the current status of practices, factors and its solution. Researchers have highlighted that in 2004 a gap between nursing services and demand shrunk in comparison with the outcomes of the survey conducted in 2002. Moreover, this research has found that in 2004 salary packages and other facilities has been increased for 41% nursing staff members that helped bridge the gap between demand and supply of nursing services in 2004 (Buerhaus, Donelan, & Ulrich, 2005). It indicated that beneficial efforts of concerned authorities can contribute to solve the nursing shortage problems up to considerable level. This study suggested that recruitment strategies have been proven valuable with half of the nurses surveys, but as this issue has not been completed resolved (Buerhaus, Donelan, & Ulrich, 2005). Therefore, further plans and strategic tools are needed to monitor and improve health care condition in context of understaffed nursing faculty in the hospitals. An article from the department of emergency medicine written by Elgie (2007) highlights the economic policies of the US designed to address the issues regarding nursing shortage. In this research, it has mentioned that with due respect to economic notion role and participation of buyers and sellers should be equal in order to run the market process and to create and an equilibrium between demand and supply (Elgie, 2007). Researchers have pinpointed that in case of nursing shortage lack of financial support to maintain balanced educational standard. Insufficient financial assistance for supporting nursing education is an important factor of consideration that helps us understand why most nursing homes are understaffed. Moreover, it is considerable that financial support from legal authorities possibly appeals political sectors, but it sometimes negatively dominates market forces of supply and demand. Elgie (2007) study suggests that effective polices can considerable contribute to motivate fresh youngsters get into nursing field. While, professional and expert guidelines can assist old nurses improve their performance and dedication for the professional field of serving humanity with the services. Also, betterments in the working environment can help professional nurses to improve their performances (Elgie, 2007). Policies are to be designed with the aim of addressing the issue of nursing shortages and more emphasize should be made on improving wages and other facilities provision of existing nursing rather than focusing on affordability of new nurses. • Gaps in the Literature Related to the Problem: A vast literature is present related to nursing shortage in various regions and patients are suffering a lot due to this crucial issue. Many researchers have intended to highlight this important issue and to present better solution in order, to address the problem. However, no appropriate changes have been observed for the problem of understaffed nursing faculties in the hospital. Moreover, it has been noticed that no implementable and wholesome strategies have been suggested in the previous studies that has created a wider gap between present literature and crucial issue of nursing shortage in the hospitals. • Research Question: Do understaffed nursing homes result in residents complaining of poor care? • Research Approach and Design: For this study, mixed methodology will be used that include both qualitative and quantitative research approaches. This would be a non-experimental qualitative and quantitative study and data will be collected via both methods. About twenty nursing homes would participate over 3 year study period and they will be asked about the reports of that time when they were understaffed. Also, records relevant of incidents will also be collected from the nursing homes during nursing staff crisis situations (Greene, 2007). Recorded data collection is a quantitative method of research, which would further include recorded data from the residents about the incidents they have experience during nursing shortage in the health care sector. Also, staff members will be asked about their views and experiences during poor nursing and availability of facilities. Moreover, residents will be given an opportunity to express keep record of their complaints against poor health care services (Greene, 2007). It is noticeable that for literature review and other relevant studies data will be collected through e-sources including article, journals, books and other credible websites. • Strengths and weakness of the Approach and Design: An access to twenty nursing homes and an opportunity to collected relevant data is a most important strength of this design. But, at the same time mixed methodology and quantitative data from diversified nursing homes can serve as a limitation for researchers. It is mainly because compilation of facts and recorded data needs enough time to be utilized in most suitable manner (Greene, 2007). Also, data collection at wider scale can also serve as a weakness of the research design while deriving out final outcomes of the study. • Concepts or independent and Dependent Variables: As this study aims to find out the impact of understaffed nurses on poor conditions of the patients, thus this study simply implies analysis of relationship between satisfaction and services quality of nursing staff. So, there are two important components namely tangibility and responsiveness, which are independent variables. While, customer satisfaction is a dependent factors, which based on valuable services of nursing staff while patients suffer from chronic health diseases (Greene, 2007). Other variables that will be considered to find the answer of research question include staff number in targeted nursing homes, quality of services and number of poor cases during nursing shortage crisis. Regression will be considered to analyze the data over three years to form an equation which tells us the relationship between number of poor cases and staff numbers (Greene, 2007). It is noticeable that as the study aims to find that understaffing leads to poor care in which number of poor cases is a dependent variable and staff number is an independent variable. • Target and Accessible Population: Target and accessible population of this study is geriatric residents at nursing home aged 65 and above. Nurses will also be targeted to find out their cognitive patterns in context of their responsibilities towards profession. Also, NA's will be interviewed to note down their experiences and emotions as they are directly involved in care services and their opinion would be proficient to be included in the findings section. • Sampling/recruitment procedure: Sample will be collected from the targeted population of nursing homes in order to understand problems from their perceptions and to suggest strategic plans for recruitment procedure. • Researchability and feasibility: As the data will be collected from twenty nursing homes over three years duration, so it may be difficult for the researchers to contact these homes within limited time and space. Therefore, more time and legal permissions will be required to investigate at wider scale. • Lessons Learned in Research Process: Theories and other related studies that have been considered in the literature review will provide chance to the research learn about relevant issues from different perspectives adopted by other researchers in their studies. Also, past theories will help researchers understand the areas which need intellectuals' attention and practitioners' efforts to resolve understaffed issues to up considerable extent. • Conclusion: From the proposed research design and methodology it could be predicted that outcomes will be derived with due respect the experiences of diversified nursing staff members and residents. Also, it is expected that an aim of overcoming the weaknesses of the previous researches would help researchers derive out and suggest most efficient solutions of addressing problems of understaffed nursing faculty. References Buerhaus, P., Donelan, K., & Ulrich, B. (2005). Is Shortage of Hospital Registered Nurses Getting Better or Worse?Findings from Two Recent National Surveys of RNs. Nursing Economics, 23(2), 61-74. Elgie, R. (2007). Politics, Economics,Nursing Shortage: A Critica Look at United States Government Policies. Nursing Economics , 285-292. Ellis, J., & Hartley, C. (2004). Nursing in Today's World: Trends, Issues & Management. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Greene, J. (2007). Mixed Methods in Social Inquiry. San Francisco: John Wiley and Sons. Siela, D. (2009). The Shortage of Nurses and Nursing Faculty. Critical Care Nurse, 17-33. Read More