Developing a Nursing Needs Assessment Scale and Patient Classification System based on Nursing Activities in Comprehensive Nursing Care Units

Abstract

Purpose: This study was done to develop and validate a scale for assessing nursing needs on comprehensive nursing care units and to derive a patient classification system based on nursing needs.Methods: In this methodological study, the initial items were identified through a review of the literature and surveys from nursing staff regarding the nursing needs on comprehensive nursing care units. Content validity was evaluated by nine nursing staff members from comprehensive nursing care units. To evaluate the concurrent validity and derive a patient classification system, nursing needs scores, perceived nursing needs and perceived patient severity for 216 patient cases were evaluated by five nurses. These data were analyzed using Pearson‘s correlation coefficients, one-way ANOVA with Scheffépost hoc tests and K-means clustering.Results: After evaluating content validity, the developed scale contained 64 activities in two domains: nursing intervention and assistance of daily living. Concurrent validity was verified by analyzing the differences in the nursing needs scores according to each group of perceived nursing needs and severity (p<.001) and by analyzing the correlation between the score of the developed scale and the National Health Insurance Service nursing need assessment scale (r=.68, p<.001). Based on the score of the developed scale, a patient classification system that classified nursing needs into four stages was derived.Conclusion: The developed scale represented nursing activities in comprehensive nursing care units. It also provided specific data regarding the time spent on nursing activities. Therefore, it is expected to contribute toward establishing appropriate nurse staffing strategies to provide quality patient care.