Factors contributing to nursing task incompletion as perceived by nurses working in Kuwait general hospitals

Background. Unfinished care has a strong relationship with quality of nursing care. Most issues related to tasks incompletion arise from staffing and workload. Objectives. This study was conducted to assess the workload of nurses, the nursing activities (tasks) nurses commonly performed on medical and surgical wards, elements of nursing care activities left incomplete by nurses during a shift, factors contributing to task incompletion and the relationship between staffing, demographic variables and task incompletion. Design. Exploratory survey using a self-administered questionnaire developed from IHOC survey, USA. Participants. All full time registered nurses working on the general medical and surgical wards of five government general hospitals in Kuwait. Methods. Research assistants distributed and collected back the questionnaires. Four working days were given to participants to complete and return the questionnaires. A total of 820 questionnaires were distributed and 95% were returned. Data analysis. Descriptive and inferential analysis using SPSS-11. Results. The five most frequently performed nursing activities were: administration of medications, assessing patient condition, preparing/updating nursing care plans, close patient monitoring and client health teaching. The most common nursing activities nurses were unable to complete were: comfort talk with patient and family, adequate documentation of nursing care, oral hygiene, routine catheter care and starting or changing IV fluid on time. Tasks were more complete when the nurse-patient load was less than 5. Nurses' age and educational background influenced task completion while nurses' gender had no influence on it. Conclusions. Increased patient loads, resulting in increased frequency of nursing tasks and non-nursing tasks, were positively correlated to incompletion of nursing activities during the shift. Relevance to clinical practice. Emphasis should be given to maintaining the optimum nurse-patient load and decreasing the non-nursing workload of nurses to enhance the quality of nursing care.