An Examination of Hospital Nurse Staffing and Patient Experience with Care: Differences between Cross‐Sectional and Longitudinal Estimates

Abstract

After controlling for unobserved hospital characteristics, the positive influences of increased nurse staffing levels and skill mix were relatively small in size and limited to a few measures of patients' inpatient experience.

The effect of nurse staffing patterns on patient satisfaction and needs: a cross-sectional study

“…This study showed that, overall, patients were satisfied with the nursing care they received, and more satisfied when the proportion of baccalaureate nurses in the nursing workforce was higher. These results support findings of previous studies (You et al., ); nevertheless, clear evidence correlating hospital nurse staffing with patient satisfaction is limited (Aiken et al., ; Ball, Griffiths, & Hope, ; Laal, ; Martsolf et al., ). Surprisingly, the highly demanding medical unit with the lowest quantity of required registered nurses had the most satisfied patients.…”

Multilevel moderated mediation model with ordinal outcome

“…The limitation of our present work with regard to mediation modeling is the cross‐sectional nature of our data, which does not allow us to claim temporal precedence required in the definitions of mediators and moderators as could be inferred from a longitudinal study. However, in previous research (Martsolf et al) results from cross‐sectional studies coincided with results from longitudinal studies. Therefore, we expect that the estimates of the relevant coefficients would not change drastically if based on a longitudinal study.…”

“…The authors used Cox proportional hazards regression models to determine increased risk of mortality after periods of exposure to low nurse staffing (Needleman et al). A recent longitudinal study assessing the association between nurse staffing and patient experiences largely confirmed findings from cross‐sectional studies (Martsolf et al). Although the RN4CAST data have a cross‐sectional nature, with the same data as used in this study, it was illustrated that 2 elements in the organization of nursing care, better nurse staffing, and better nurse working environments are associated with better patient experiences and lower patient mortality (Aiken et al and Aiken et al).…”

Nurse Staffing Patterns and Patient Experience of Care: An Empirical Analysis of U.S. Hospitals

“…; Martsolf et al. ). Indeed, patients’ self‐reported experience with hospital care (i.e., patient experience of care) has become a widely used type of quality measure.…”

“…; Kang ), although a recent study by Martsolf et al. () suggests that this relationship may at least in part be attributable to hospital characteristics that are not readily measurable but likely to influence both nurse staffing patterns and the quality of patient care (Jha et al. ; Kutney‐Lee et al.…”