Evaluation of the standards of nursing care in pediatric wards in referral hospitals in Swaziland

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:Recent escalation of medical costs, cost containment and decreasing publicfunds, drew attention to the importance of formulation and evaluation ofstandards of nursing care.Practice experience and consultations with nurse managers indicated a greatneed for standards to evaluate the quality of care in the pediatric units of the bighospitals in Swaziland.A non-experimental, explorative and descriptive study was conducted in the fourregional hospitals in Swaziland. Checklists were developed by the researcher toevaluate standards of care relating to the structure, process and outcomedimension of care.Structure standards refer to minimum requirements regarding the facilities,equipment, supplies, and availability of generic documents and staff.Process standards are mainly concerned with the specific nursing proceduresand practices, while theOutcome standards evaluate the parents' satisfaction with the nursing care oftheir child, the amount of information received prior to discharge and the level ofcommunication between the parents and the nursing staff.The most important results are:.:. None of the hospitals met the pre-set requirement to be considered asdelivering a satisfactory level of care for any of the three dimensions of care .•:. Critical nursing procedures were often performed ineffectively andinefficiently .•:. Most parents viewed their communication with the nursing staff negatively.Recommendations include the development and implementation of a formalizedquality improvement programme on all levels of care, auditing of records andpatient care and in-service education for all personnel regarding quality care.Keywords: Quality care, formulation and evaluation of standards - pediatricpatients

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University