Nursing Activities Score (NAS): 5 Years of experience in the intensive care units of an Italian University hospital

Objective: To retrospectively analyse the application of the Nursing Activities Score (NAS) in an intensive care department from January 2006 to December 2011. Method: The sample consists of 5856 patients in three intensive care units (GICU: General Intensive Care Unit, NeuroICU: Neurosurgical Intensive Care Unit, CICU: Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit) of an Italian University hospital.The NAS was calculated for each patient every 24. hours. In patients admitted to general ICU, the following scores: SAPS 2 and SAPS 3 (Simplified Acute Physiology Score), RASS (Richmond Agitation Sedation Scale) and Braden were also recorded along with the NAS. Results: The mean NAS for all patients was 65.97% (Standard Deviation. ±. 2.53), GICU 72.55% (±16.28), NeuroICU 59.33% (±16.54), CICU 63.51% (SD. ±. 14.69). The average length of hospital stay (LOS) was 4.82 (SD. ±. 8.68). The NAS was high in patients with increasing LOS (p<. 0.003) whilst there were no significant differences for age groups except for children 0-10 years (p<. 0.002). The correlation of NAS and SAPS 2 was r= 0.24 (p= 0.001), NAS and SAPS 3 r= -0.26 (p= 0.77), NAS and RASS r= -0.23 (p= 0.001), NAS and Braden r= 0.22 (p= 0.001). Conclusions: This study described the daily use of the NAS for the determination of nursing workload and defines the staff required. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.