Findings From a Nursing Care Audit Based on the Nursing Process: A Descriptive Study

BACKGROUND: Although using the nursing process improves nursing care quality, few studies have evaluated nursing performance in accordance with nursing process steps either nationally or internationally. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to audit nursing care based on a nursing process model. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This was a cross-sectional descriptive study in which a nursing audit checklist was designed and validated for assessing nurses’ compliance with nursing process. A total of 300 nurses from various clinical settings of Tehran university of medical sciences were selected. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics, including frequencies, Pearson correlation coefficient and independent samples t-tests. RESULTS: The compliance rate of nursing process indicators was 79.71 ± 0.87. Mean compliance scores did not significantly differ by education level and gender. However, overall compliance scores were correlated with nurses’ age (r = 0.26, P = 0.001) and work experience (r = 0.273, P = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Nursing process indicators can be used to audit nursing care. Such audits can be used as quality assurance tools.