Quality of emergency nursing care in two tertiary healthcare settings in a developing Sub-Saharan African Country

Abstract

IntroductionThe quality of care received by patients during the first few hours following an accident and/or acute life-threatening conditions can significantly affect the overall outcome of treatment. This study, therefore, assessed the quality of emergency nursing care in two tertiary healthcare settings in a developing Sub-Saharan African Country.MethodsThe study was conducted in two renowned tertiary hospitals in Southwest Nigeria. Four hundred and twenty-eight patients selected by purposive sampling technique from the two hospitals formed the sample. The Donabedian three-pronged approach of structure, process and outcome domains was employed for data collection. Two instruments; an adapted validated structured questionnaire and an observation checklist were used for data collection and data collected were analysed with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 24) using mainly descriptive statistics such as frequency counts and percentages.ResultsResults showed that a majority (62.6%) rated the quality of emergency nursing care as high though observation revealed glaring differences in the structure, process and outcome domains of quality in selected hospitals.Discussion/ConclusionThe study, therefore, concluded that while the quality of emergency nursing care in the selected hospitals can be described in general as average, a lot still needs to be done to address the identified deficiencies in emergency nursing care.