Relationship between Nursing Workload and Patient Safety

3 Relationship between Nursing Workload and Patient Safety 

The heavy workload of nurses (particularly in hospitals) is becoming a major problem for the U.S. health care system, as the demand for nurses is increasing because of population aging [5]. For example, during the period 2000-2020, the U.S. population over 65 years of age is expected to grow by 54% (i.e., 19 million) [6,7]. The four main reasons for nurses to have higher workloads than ever before are as follows [5]  

Six areas of relationship between nursing workload and patient safety that show how nursing workload can, directly or indirectly, affect patient safety are time, motivation, stress and burnout, errors in decision making (attention), violations or walk-aroimd, and systemic/organizational impact [5]. In the case of time, the nursing staff with heavy workloads may not have adequate time to apply safe practices, conduct required tasks safely, or monitor patients, and may reduce their communication with concerned physicians and other providers—for example, no or little time for doublechecking medications. 

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