Explanatory Rate of Patient-Nurse Contact Time by Severity and Medical/Nursing Need

Abstract

　The aim of the study was to determine the explanatory rate of the variance in “patient-nurse contact time in the ward” by the quantified nursing index “nursing need”. The subjects were 40 patients in hospital. Contact time was measured over six days using ICT equipment, and the correlation between level of nursing needs and contact time on each of the days analyzed. Analyses were conducted by testing for differences in contact time for each nursing need item and by regression analysis with contact time as the objective variable and the nursing need item as the explanatory variable. As a result, significant differences in contact time were found in eight items on the level of nursing needs list. Ultimately, the multiple regression analysis yielded a regression model that comprised five of these items and a coefficient of determination of 0.207. The results confirmed that the level of nursing need was a measure significantly related to contact time. However, the regression model created from these items explained only 20％ of the variance suggesting that it would be difficult to predict contact time based on the level of nursing needs alone.