Developing a tool to measure missed care in mental health nursing
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Developing a tool to measure missed care in acute inpatient mental health nursing: a Delphi study
IRAS ID
208745
Contact name
Anne Marie Rafferty
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
King's College London
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 9 months, 5 days
Research summary
Missed care is defined as “as any aspect of required patient care that is omitted (either in part or in whole) or delayed” (Kalisch & Willams, 2009 p.211). The concept of ‘missed care’, has developed within the last decade in adult nursing resulting in measurement tools for use in general medical and surgical wards. Studies have demonstrated consistent associations between missed care and worse patient outcomes such as patient safety, satisfaction and an increase in unmet needs as well as worse staff outcomes, including job satisfaction and turnover. \n\nMissed care has not been studied in mental health settings and the existing tools are not transferable for use in mental health. This study aims to produce a tool to measure missed care in acute inpatient mental health nursing, using the following three components.\n \n1)\tFocus groups with staff and service users to provide some understanding of what missed care means in practice and to generate some ideas for the first draft of the tool. \n\n2)\tA Delphi study with qualified mental health nurses and service users. The aim is to reach consensus on which missed care items that should be included in a tool. The results of both groups (nurses and service users) would be merged together to produce a final tool.\n\n3)\tCognitive interviews with nurses, pilot testing the tool to check face and content validity.\n\nIt is anticipated that a missed care tool for acute inpatient mental health nursing would identify the fundamental nursing tasks to be performed by nurses and could inform prioritisation and decision making by ward nurses, thus improving the quality of care. It could assist service planners to make more informed decisions about care priorities and the deployment of resources.
REC name
North West - Preston Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/NW/0841
Date of REC Opinion
30 Nov 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion