A pilot study of satisfaction in oncology nursing care: an indirect predictor of quality of care

Although “satisfaction” is not easy to define, excellence in health care is impossible without professional/patient satisfaction, so this paper aims to report on a pilot study designed in order to evaluate the degree of nursing staff satisfaction with the implementation of measures to improve quality of care.

The project consisted of several phases: writing protocols of care; training of nursing staff in their management; and a cross‐sectional study to evaluate nursing staff satisfaction with them. The design of the survey consisted of a 16‐item Likert scale, which had to be auto filled. A factorial analysis to simplify and validate the tools was used, using statistical analyses with SPSS software 8.0.

The results are applicable to young small oncological units with high degree of variability in patient care. The study showed that nursing staff satisfaction with new improvement measures taken improves safety and finally quality of care.

The study obtained four dimensions (D) explaining 100 percent of variance. Each dimension with several items: D1: “Nursing job quality” explaining 48.4 percent of variance; D2: “Satisfaction with the knowledge”; D3: “Nursing job feelings/perceptions”; D4: “Nursing communication with doctors/patients”. It provided a direct point of view of each nurse, knowledge about problems encountered daily and demonstration of how a simple/convenient method is useful to engage the staff in decision‐making‐process and implementation of new strategies or to promote the integration of basic aspects of health management in daily clinical practice.

This is the first study evaluating nursing staff satisfaction with new improvement measures taken in a small medical unit, aiming at quality of care benefits. Very promising results were obtained although the sample size was small.