Quality of nursing care assessment in the context of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in the University of Benin teaching hospital, Benin-City, Nigeria: Patients' perspectives

Abstract

Context: Quality of nursing care is the extent to which nursing health-care services provide an improved desired health outcome. Thus, using patients' perception as a proxy in measuring the quality of nursing care is highly recommended. Aims: The aim is to assess the quality of nursing care in the context of Coronavirus diseases (COVID-19) pandemic in the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH) from patients' perspectives. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study on the quality of nursing care: patients' perspective. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to selected patients who had been on admission for not <2 weeks from the onset of the pandemic. A multistage sampling technique was used to select the sample size of 200 patients. Data collected were analysed using tables, percentages, means, standard deviation and Chi-square test; at 0.05 level of significance, through the Statistical Package for the Social Science software. Results: The findings revealed that patients had poor perception in some areas of nursing practice, and this is attributed to the shortage of nurses on the wards for patients' care. It also showed that nurse-patient relationship, and nurse-patient communication were significantly related to patients' perception of quality of nursing care (χ2 = 3.84, P ≤ 0.001) and (χ2 = 17.61, P = 0.003), respectively. Conclusion: The patient's perception of nursing care in UBTH was not perfect and this they attributed to the shortage of nurses on the wards for patients 'care, therefore the hospital management and the government should ensure more nurses are employed in the hospital so that the nurses can implement the standard ratio of nurse–patient relationship.