Quality of Care Rendered by Benguet State University Student Nurses to Critical and Non-Critical Patients: A comparative study

Abstract

Quality health care is the optimal delivery of effective, efficient and cost-benefit professional health services to people and communities. Nurses are the largest group among health care professionals who are legally liable and morally responsible for their care, quality nursing care is essential. Quality nursing care is the delivery of safe care based on nursing standards which eventually results in patient satisfaction. Florence Nightingale has been a pioneer in providing quality nursing care. Today nurses are expected to render quality nursing care in the most effective and efficient way with the maximum utilization of scarce resources. Given that Benguet State University (BSU) is one of the top performing schools in the Philippines, it is therefore expected from the students to have a higher knowledge and skills in terms of caring for their patients. This study sought to determine the quality of care rendered by BSU-CN student nurses to critical and non-critical patients along the 11 core competencies in nursing: Safe & quality nursing practice, Management of resources & environment, Health education, Legal responsibility, Ethico-moral responsibility, Personal & professional development, Quality improvement, Research, Record Management, Communication and Collaboration and teamwork of student nurses from Benguet State University. Also it seeks to find out if there is a significant difference in the care given to critically ill patients to that of non-critically ill patients. The descriptive survey method was employed to gather data through questionnaire, which was distributed to all the fourth and third year nursing students of Benguet State University (BSU) for them to answer. Data were collected, tabulated, statistically analyzed and interpreted. The findings of the study revealed that the level of quality care rendered by Benguet State University student nurses to critical and non-critical patients was excellent while it was satisfactory on the aspect of research. There was no difference of the level of quality care rendered by the Benguet State University student nurses to critical and non-critical patients except for quality improvement wherein the level of quality care rendered by BSU-CN student nurses to non-critically ill patients is significantly higher that the level of care rendered to critically ill patients. Further study is needed to support the results or findings of this study which were gathered. The researchers believed that it is not enough to know the side of the one giving care but also the one who is being cared of that is the patient