Does Better Nurse Staffing Improve Detection of Depression and Anxiety As Secondary Conditions in Hospitalized Patients with Pneumonia?

Identifying anxiety and depression in hospital patients has important implications for the quality of care, including reducing hospital admissions, promoting patient-centered care, and improving long-term patient outcomes. Hospital admissions are important opportunities for uncovering mental illness; whether hospitals actually take advantage of these important opportunities may depend on staffing. Nurse staffing is central to achieving the goals outlined by patient-centered care initiatives. The results of this study suggest an effect of nursing ratios on the detection of secondary mental health conditions via a quasi-experiment surrounding California's minimum nursing ratio law. This analysis indicates hospitals with larger decreases in the number of patients under each nurse's care had greater improvements in the detection of secondary depression and anxiety in patients with pneumonia.