ABSTRACT
Objective:
to verify if the nursing workload is a predictor of mortality at an Intensive Care Unit.
Method:
cross-sectional and retrospective documentary study, developed at the Intensive Care Unit of a tertiary university hospital. The Receiver Operator Characteristic Curve was used, consisting of the Nursing Activities Score and the APACHE severity score, using logistic regression to analyze the prediction of mortality.
Results:
the sample included 324 patients, 214 (66%) of whom survived. The mean Nursing Activities Score during the first 24 hours of hospitalization was 79.3 points, ranging from 34.8 to 134.2 points, and the median APACHE II was 24.5 (2-42). In the analysis of the Receiver Operator Characteristic Curve, the Nursing Activities Score evidenced an area under the curve corresponding to 0.626; CI between 0.570 and 0.678 and an APACHE II score of 0.721, with a 95% confidence interval from 0.669 to 0.769.
Conclusion:
the nursing workload did not serve as a mortality predictor at the Intensive Care Unit, as the patients who demand the main nursing workload are not necessarily the patients who evolve to death.
DESCRIPTORS:
Workload; Nursing staff; Intensive Care Units; Mortality; Severity of illness index
