Carga de trabajo de enfermería en la unidad de cuidados intensivos de adultos. Revisión sistemática

Abstract

Introduction. Nursing staff adequacy is a challenge in hospital management, especially in the critical cares fields, due to the continuous technological development and the multiple therapeutic options, which allow for increasing the sur-vival of patients admitted in intensive care units. Objective. To describe the influence of nursing workload in patients admitted to the adults intensive Care Units. Methods. A literature review was conducted from articles in English, Por-tuguese and Spanish, published since 2000 to 2016 in the databases of Pubmed, CINAHL and Web of Science. Results.Seventy-three studies were included in the review. Most of them analyzed the risk factors and the consequences of a high nursing workload, as the increment of mortality and healthcare associated infections. Conclusion. A high nursing workload increased the mortality rate, the occurrence of healthcare associated infections and the adverse events risk. An adequate nurse-patient ratio related to better patient outcomes and improves the survival rate.