Interventions to improve working conditions of nursing staff in acute care hospitals: Scoping review.

AIM

To conduct a scoping review to examine and map the interventions proposed for the improvement of the working conditions of nursing staff in acute care hospitals.

BACKGROUND

The Registered Nurse Forecasting (RN4CAST) project and other studies have determined the impact that the nursing staff has on the quality of care. The nursing staff's higher levels of burnout, job dissatisfaction and negative perception of the quality of care provided caused worse health outcomes.

METHODS

A scoping review was carried out. By searching in SCOPUS, PubMed, CINAHL, Cochrane, Dialnet and in the grey literature, 705 potentially relevant papers were identified. The final analysis included 21 papers and three grey documents.

RESULTS

The studies analysed proposed interventions at the macro-management, meso-management and micro-management levels, although the interventions at the macro- and meso-levels produce better staff outcomes.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings of this review can be applied to management at different levels: measures to improve the patient-nurse ratio at the macro-management level, the horizontal hierarchies at the meso-management level, the mind-body techniques at the micro-management level.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT

Nurse managers and leaders should implement interventions at different organisational levels to improve the working conditions of the nursing staff and other health outcomes.