Clinical staff work sampling in a neurorehabilitation hospital and its relationship to severity of disease

Aim: Study aimed to analyse how rehabilitation staff spends working time on specific activities in a neurorehabilitation hospital and to determine the number of direct activities received by patients with different levels of disease severity.

Background: Few studies have investigated how clinical staff spends their time on activities in rehabilitation hospitals without considering at the same time all working categories and without reporting the number of direct activities received by patients with respect to their disease severity.

Design: Self-reported observational study.

Method: Work Sampling Technique was used to record direct, indirect, unit-related and personal activities every 5 min for 2 days.

Results: Total of 6,974 activities were recorded over 581 working hours. Physiotherapists and nurses spent 75.2% and 54.8% of their time in direct activities and medical doctors only 25.4%. Total time of direct activities was significantly different among worker categories (p = 0.001) and depended on patients' disease severity (p = 0.020) in a different manner among worker categories (interaction: p = 0.010). This time ranged from almost 4 hr up to 6½ hr for the most severely affected patients.

Conclusion: Type of work differed among professionals. Workload greatly depended on degree of patients' disability.

Implications for nursing management: Nurses and therapists spent most of their time in direct activities with patients. Economic burden of neurorehabilitation may vary greatly depending on disease severity.