The effects of shortstaff on quality of care Research Proposal - 1

The effects of shortstaff on quality of care - Research Proposal Example A motivating environment facilitates output and can be identified by high patients’ utility levels while poor environment leads to poor services and hence poor quality of care to patients. A research to determine association between the level of staffing and quality of services by a care facility identified dependence. Based on the research’s results, insufficient staffing of a care facility increases the number of reported deaths, hinders rescue processes, and increases cases of cardiovascular complications, pneumonia that is acquired within the care facilities and other negative occurrences that could be anticipated from a facility (Agency, 2007). Other factors also exist that affect the quality of care to a patient, measured in terms of achieved results and patients’ level of satisfaction. A patient’s age, type of illness and physiological conditions are other identified factors to overall quality of care (Clarke and Donaldson, n.d). This however induces uncertainty in the proposed association between staffing and quality of care and it is necessary to ascertain the link for nurse staffing policies, and public knowledge towards informed decisions when seeking nursing care. The proposed research therefore seeks to ascertain existence of a significant relationship between staffing and presumed effects of understaffing on quality of care. The proposed research will consider two variables, ratio of number of patients to personnel in a care facility, and patients perceived quality of care. The patients to personnel ration will define the derived quotient from dividing the number of patient by the number of personnel in a facility and will be the independent variable. The ratio will be measured on a categorical scale to be determined. Patients’ perceived and observed factors that are associated with staff ratios at respective facilities will be the independent variable and will be measured