J Nurs Acad Soc.  1994 Dec;24(4):584-596.

A Study of Variables Related to Nursing Productivity

• Park KO

Abstract

The objective of the study is to explore the relationships between the variables of nursing productivity on the framework of system model in the tertiary university based care hospital in Korea. Productivity is basically defined as the relationship between inputs and outputs. Under the proposition that the nursing unit is a system that produces nursing care output using personal and material resources through the nursing intervention and nursing care management. And this major conception of nursing productivity system comproises input, process and output and feed-back. These categorized variables are essential parts to produce desirable and meaningful output. While nursing personnel from head nurse to staff nurses cooperate with each other, the head nurse directs her subordinates to achieve the goal of nursing care unit. I n this procedure, the head nurse uses the leadership of authority and benevolence. Meantime nursing productivity will be greatly influenced by environment and surrounding organizational structures, and by also the operational objectives, the policy and standards of procedures. For the study of nursing productivity one sample hospital with 15 general nursing care units was selected. Research data were collected for 3 weeks from May 31 to June 20 in 1993. Input variables were measured in terms of both the served and the servor. And patient classification scores were measured daily by degree of nursing care needs that indicated patent case-mix. And also nurses' educational period for profession and clinical experience and the score of nurses' personality were measured as producer input variables by the questionnaires. The process varialbes act necessarily on leading input resources and result in desirable nursing outputs. Thus the head nurse's leadership perceived by her followers is defined as process variable. The output variables were defined as length of stay, average nursing care hours per patient a day, the score of quality of nursing care, the score of patient satisfaction, the score of nurse's job satisfaction. The nursing unit was the basis of analysis, and various statistical analyses were used: Reliability analysis (Cronbach's alpha) for 5 measurement tools and Pearson-correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis, and canonical correlation analysis for the test of the relationship among the variables. The results were as follows: 1. Significant positive relationship between the score of patient classification and length of stay was found(r=.6095, p.008). 2. Regression coefficient between the score of patient classification and length of stay was significant (beta=.6245, p=.0128), and variance explained was 39%. 3. Significant positive relationship between nurses' educational period and length of stay was found(r=-.4546, p=.044). 5. Regression coefficient between nurses' educational period and the score of quality of nursing care was significant(beta=.5600, p=.029), and variance explained was 31.4%. 6. Significant positive relationship between the score of head nurse's leadership of authoritic characterisitics and the length of stay was found (r=5869, p=.011). 7. Significant negative relationship between the score of head nurse's leadership of benevolent characteristics and average nursing care hours was found(r=-.4578, p=.043). 8. Regression coefficient between the score of head nurse's leadership of benevolent characteristics and average nursing care hours was significant (beta=-.6912, p=.0043), variance explained was 47.8%. 9. Significant positive relationship between the score of the head nurse's leadership of benevolent characterisitics and the score of nurses' job satisfaction was found(r=.4499, p=050). 10. A significant canonical correlation was found between the group of the independent variables consisted of the score of the nurses' personality, the score of the head nurse's leadership of authoritic characteristics and the group of the dependent variables consisted of the length of stay, average nursing care hours (Rc2=.4771, p=.04l). Through these results, the assumed relationships between input variables, process variable, output variables were partly supported. In addition it is also considered necessary that further study on the relationships between nurses' personality and nurses' educational period, between nurses' clinical experience including skill level and output variables in many research samples should be made.

MeSH Terms

Beneficence
Classification
Efficiency*
Fertilization
Head
Humans
Job Satisfaction
Korea
Leadership
Length of Stay
Nursing Care
Nursing*
Nursing, Supervisory
Patient Satisfaction
Surveys and Questionnaires