Indirect Patient Care by Nurses in the Intensive Care Unit of a Hospital in Iran During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The most important factors for the development of any society are human resources. The intensive care units (ICUs) are the most important departments in the hospitals. Considering the importance of time management for patient care, lack of human resources in this profession, and the fact that nurses spend a lot of time on indirect and non-nursing works, this study aims to investigate the time and type of indirect patient care provided by nurses in the ICU of a hospital in Iran during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is a descriptive, cross-sectional, and observational study that was conducted for 6 months. Participants were 42 nurses working in the ICU of Hafte Tir Hospital in Rey, Iran who were randomly selected from different shifts. Their activities were observed and their spent time was recorded by the researcher using the stopwatch mobile application. The data collection tool was the Persian version of the International Classification for Nursing Practice (ICNP) checklist with acceptable face and content validity according to opinions of a panel of experts (5 faculty members and 10 nurses). descriptive statistics (frequency, mean, standard deviation, minimum, and maximum) were used for data analysis by SPSS software, version 22. 

Most of nurses (60%) were in the age group of 30-39 years and 72% of them had a work experience of 11-20 years. Most of the nurses were female (85%) and married (80%). In each shift, nurses spent an average time of 247 minutes providing indirect care. The longest time in indirect care was related to writing nursing reports (34.9 ± 10.5 min per shift) and the shortest time were related to removing personal protective equipment (6.11±3.19 min per shift), consulting with a colleague, and wearing personal protective equipment (both with 7±3.55 min per shift).

Although patients need direct care and continuous presence of the nurse more during the COVID-19 pandemic and there are advanced equipment. To provide proper nursing care, it is important to increase the number of nurses and reduce their non-nursing activities.