A Study on Standards Development for Nursing Practice

Abstract

The study was performed to develop standards for nursing practice. The quality and quantity of medical services, including nursing services, has been determined to date by the availability of providers rather than by the actual needs of the patients. In fact, there has been a serious gap between expected and actual services. In order to provide high quality nursing services and to enhance professional status, the nursing profession should define their practice in a measurable way and identify the client outcomes to which they contribute. Therefore, this research was conducted through the three phases as follows : (1) Evaluation of current nursing practices and environment, and analysis of actual patient needs, by means of questionnaires. (2) Literature review to define the nature, purpose, and standards of professional nursing practice. (3) Expert group´s modification of existing standards by integrating the results of first two phases. As a result, standards for each area of nursing practice were developed, such as shown in Table 3 and Table 4. However, these standards must receive ongoing attention by the profession to assure that they remain current and reflect advances in nursing knowledge and clinical technology.