Survey on the Quality of Care Standards in a Nursing/Midwifery Training Hospital at Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2019

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this article was to conduct a survey on the quality of care standards in nursing/midwifery training hospital of Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. METHODS: A multiple methods design was used for the study. For the quantitative phase, 35 nurses, 35 patients, and 52 patient charts were selected by simple random sampling from eight randomly selected wards of the hospital. For the qualitative phase, purposive sampling was employed to select participants for focus group discussion and in-depth interview. Twelve instructors and 11 head nurses were recruited. The Quality Audit tool developed by Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health was applied. RESULTS: It was found that the nursing and midwifery service quality standards were low and did not meet Ministry of Health standards. The chart review showed that 83% of nursing and midwifery assessments were not completed within eight hours of patient arrival, and in over half the charts (58%), there was no written evidence of compilation of data based on Gordon's functional model. Only two wards met Standard 1 with adequate medical equipment for nursing diagnosis or intervention. Seventy-five percent of the wards had a scarcity of materials and supplies needed to provide a quality nursing service. Half the nursing stations had adequate patient visibility, and half had an organized chart filing system based on the patient’s bed number. CONCLUSION: A high proportion of wards were not meeting Ministry of Health standards for nursing midwifery services. Improvement in care standards is vital to enable the hospital to function as a clinical setting for the education of health-care students. This might be achieved through ongoing attention to quality improvement and a program of in-service training regarding national care quality standards for managers, nurses, and midwives.