Abstract
The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spread rapidly worldwide. Nursing home (NH) residents are the most vulnerable high-risk population to infection. Professional registered nurses’ (RNs’) infection control is irreplaceable. We used a secondary data analysis method using the government's senior citizen welfare department large data set about all NHs (N = 3,389) across Korea between January 20 and October 20, 2020. Bed size positively associated with the mortality rate (No. of COVID-19 resident deaths / No. of total residents) (p =.048). When the proportion of RNs to total nursing staff was higher, the infection rate was 0.626% lower (p =.049), the mortality rate was 0.088% lower (p =.076), the proportion of confirmed COVID-19 cases per resident out of the total number of NHs was 44.472% lower (p =.041), and the proportion of confirmed COVID-19 deaths per resident out of the total number of NHs was 6.456% lower (p =.055). This study highlighted nurse staffing criteria and suggests that increasing RNs in NHs will reduce infection and mortality rates during the COVID-19 pandemic. We strongly suggest NHs hire at least one RN per day to properly function, and a minimum of four RNs to provide a fully competent RN workforce in long-term care settings in Korean NHs.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 15-25 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | Policy, Politics, and Nursing Practice |
Volume | 23 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Feb 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© The Author(s) 2021.
Keywords
- COVID-19
- nurse staffing
- nursing homes