The purpose of this paper is to take a look at a qualitative research study that was done by the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. This particular study titled Missed Nursing Care; A Qualitative Study, took a look at the most commonly missed nursing interventions and why they were missed. It also looked at the correlation to the omission and nurse to patient staffing ratios. This study is significant to nursing practice as a whole, because it affects patient outcomes, nursing satisfaction, as well as malpractice issues and hospital payouts. The hypothesis of the study stated there was a common theme in hospitals of repeated omissions in patient care and that it has a direct correlation to patient outcomes and hospital stay length.

The study which was qualitative in nature, focused on two hospitals that were geographically separated and had a range of 210-458 occupied beds on a medical surgical unit at any given time. 107 RN’s, 15 LPN’s and 51 Nurse Assistants were assigned to 25 different focus groups. The research was designed so that the subjects were separated and promised confidentiality about their responses. The groups were further segregated so no retaliation could occur between the groups of workers, for instance RN’s could not be in a group with Nurse Assistants. In addition, they were also given the option to make responses on paper in secret to items they had fear of retaliation. Surprisingly, the same themes and reports came up time and time again in the different focus groups. It was found that ambulation, turning, feeding, patient teaching, discharge/planning, emotional support, hygiene, intake/output, documentation and surveillance were all items that frequently got missed. Now that we know why and how the study was done, let’s take a look at the findings.

We have already determined that several important activities of daily living