Nursing intensity and patient classification at an adult intensive care unit (ICU)

Abstract

ICUs have been using patient information systems for several years now and a huge amount of data is recorded every day. Still nursing research has only limited evidence on how the data recorded in these systems are used. Two of the items systematically recorded in Finnish patient information systems are patient classification and nursing intensity. The aim of this pilot study was to: Use the systematically recorded data of one intensive care unit and discover which variables correlate with or have a statistical relationship to patient classification and nursing intensity. The study uses a descriptive statistical approach and the material has been investigated, retrospectively. The material consisted of information system data on 1737 patients at one Finnish intensive care unit in 2003. Altogether 15,866 patient classifications were made during 1 year. A statistically moderate dependence and a strong correlation (r=0.40) were found between nursing intensity, patient's age, sex and type of intensive care in the case of female emergency non-operative patients and between nursing intensity. That is, the older the female emergency non-operative patient, the higher the assessment of nursing intensity was. Also the correlation between Therapeutic Intervention Scoring System (TISS) scores and nursing intensity was found to be statistically strong (r=0.57). Despite the strong correlation the average TISS score in this study can only account for 32% of the patient's average nursing intensity during the period of treatment.