The purpose of this project is twofold: 1) to describe the nursing care delivered to people with AIDS (PWAs) at the time of their first hospitalization for the onset of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), and 2) to follow the PWAs for a six-month period to describe the relationship between hospitalized nursing care delivered and selected short- and long-term patient outcomes. This Prospective study utilizes a quality assurance framework (Lang, 1976). Nursing care is defined as potential and evident patient problems identified and interventions implemented by nurses. The quality of the nursing care will be evaluated by describing the observed relationships among identified problems, nursing interventions, and patients' status. The immediate goal is to develop a validated care plan for PWAs that would include commonly activated patient problems, effective nursing interventions, and measurable patient outcomes. An activated patient problem is one that has been identified by the patient or the nurse as a significant issue for the patient. An effective nursing intervention is a nursing action that has been correlated with a positive change in patient status. Measurable patient outcomes refer to the patients' changing health status as measured by a valid and reliable instrument. The long-term goal is to develop an assessment model that will expand the strategies available to measure the quality of nursing care.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 23 publications
