How do PICU nurses spend their time? A pilot study

Background: The Royal College of Nursing has recently expressed concerns about the amount of time nurses spend completing paperwork to the detriment of direct patient contact.

Aims: To determine how nurses on a psychiatric intensive care unit divide their time between duties, with a view to recommending ways of increasing quality time spent with patients.

Method: Five qualified nurses were observed while they worked a long day shift. Each activity was timed and assigned to one of seven main categories and a larger number of sub-categories.

Results: A total of 3758 minutes of nursing time were observed. Participants spent most time (30%) on direct patient contact with 12% of time involving medicines administration but only 1% in formal therapy sessions with patients and even less with relatives, friends and carers. Just less than 30% of time was spent in meetings and discussions about patients and 23% in completing paperwork and administration. For 14% of time nurses were engaged in tasks that could have been completed by healthcare assistants or administrators, although some of this time involved direct patient contact.

Conclusions: Nursing staff need to focus on spending more 1:1 and especially therapeutic time with patients.