Prediction of care burden of patients undergoing haemodialysis: development of a measuring tool

SUMMARY
Background: The ageing of the population and new options for therapy have led to an increase in the number of patientsundergoing dialysis. Rising costs in health care and new financial structures impose funding constraints on dialysisdepartments and force the departments to deploy nurses more efficiently. Therefore, predicting the nursing time spent onthe care of patients is important.Objective: Development of a classification tool to predict the burden of nursing care of patients undergoing dialysis.Design: Observational study.Participants: 242 patients on dialysis in 12 centres.Measurements: The time spent on nursing care within predefined areas, including patient independence, vascular access,psychosocial support, dialysis complexity, communication and specific nursing actions, was measured by observers.Average times and their standard deviations (SD) were calculated. Variation of patient characteristics was analysed.Results: The average care time required for the four routine investigated domains, namely independence, vascular access,psychosocial support and dialysis complexity, was 59.23 (SD ¼ 24.30) minutes per treatment per patient.Conclusion: Our study shows that it is possible to predict the burden of nursing care of patients undergoing dialysis by meansof a classification model.