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The content of nurse unit managers’ work: a descriptive study using daily activity diaries
Author(s) -
Sveinsdóttir Herdís,
Blöndal Katrín,
Jónsdóttir Heiður Hrund,
Bragadóttir Helga
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of caring sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.678
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1471-6712
pISSN - 0283-9318
DOI - 10.1111/scs.12517
Subject(s) - work (physics) , unit (ring theory) , listing (finance) , service (business) , exploratory research , nursing , time management , job satisfaction , descriptive research , medicine , psychology , business , computer science , marketing , mechanical engineering , social psychology , statistics , mathematics education , mathematics , finance , sociology , anthropology , engineering , operating system
Background NUM s’ job description in Icelandic hospitals has been revised and now also includes managerial and financial responsibilities. Aim To describe the actual work activities of nurse unit managers ( NUM s) in surgical and internal medicine services as self‐documented and reflected in their job description. Design Prospective exploratory study. Method The study's setting was the largest hospital in Iceland. Data were collected over 7 days from NUM s working on surgical and medical units with an activity diary listing five domains and 41 activities: ‘management and planning’ (seven activities), ‘staff responsibility (seven activities), ‘direct clinical work’ (five activities), ‘service’ (12 activities) and ‘other’ (nine activities). Results The managers’ spent most of their time within the ‘other’ domain (32% of their time), then the next significant amount of time on ‘management and planning’ and ‘clinical nursing’ (19%), and the least amount of time on ‘service’ (14%). All reported working on two or more activities simultaneously. NUM s made erroneous estimations approximately half of the time about the domain they spent most of their time in and their satisfaction with their work each day varied greatly. Conclusion The work of NUM s is highly diverse, including undefined miscellaneous tasks and clinical work beyond their job description.