Difficulty coefficient of Operating Room nursing items

Objective To define the difficulty coefficient of Operating Room nursing items which is suitable for difficulty evaluation and can represent the workload of Operating Room nursing. Methods From January 2017 to March 2018, through literature review, questionnaire survey and expert demonstration meeting, the nursing work items and operational difficulty indicators suitable for difficulty evaluation in Operating Room were determined. The weight of difficulty indicators was determined by analytic hierarchy process. Fifteen experts were selected for three rounds of Delphi inquiry. The coefficients of difficulty were determined by weighted linear method. Results Finally, the difficulty coefficients of 68 operating room nursing items were obtained. The top three difficulty coefficients were "position placement and observation of lateral traction bed (7.268 7) ", "position placement and observation of fixed skull (7.254 0) " and "position and observation of skull-brain frame lateral decubitus position (7.243 3) "; the last three difficulty coefficients were "horizontal supine position placement and observation (2.178 2) " and "sterile sheet laying (2.046 0) " , "no-contact wearing of sterile gloves (1.000 0) ". Conclusions This study defines 68 difficulty coefficients of operating room nursing work items which are suitable for difficulty evaluation and can represent the workload of Operating Room nursing. It can quantify the difficulty of Operating Room nursing work items and enhance the rationality of Operating Room nursing workload counting. Key words: Operating Room nursing; Nursing research; Difficulty coefficient; Delphi method; Workload counting