Final answer:
The quality of nursing care can decrease due to factors like an increase in patient acuity, inadequate staffing, and twelve-hour shifts. Rotating shifts can also negatively affect nurses' health and care quality. The supply of nurses is declining, which affects the market equilibrium, creating uncertainties in the quantity of available nurses despite higher salaries.
Step-by-step explanation:
Nurses have cited specific reasons for a decrease in the quality of nursing care. Some of the issues impacting nursing care include:
- Increase in acuity: This refers to the overall increase in the severity of illness or intensity of nursing care that is required for a population.
- Inadequate staffing: A lower number of nurses available to care for patients can lead to increased workloads and potential burnout, affecting care quality.
- Twelve-hour shifts: While common in healthcare, longer shifts can lead to fatigue, which may negatively impact patient care and nurse satisfaction.
Other factors such as working weekends may also contribute to decreased satisfaction among nurses, and when nurses work rotating shifts, it can disrupt their circadian rhythms and have negative impacts on their health and the quality of care they provide. Effective measures to combat these issues, such as ensuring reasonable nurse-to-patient ratios, can help maintain high standards in patient care.
As indicated in Figure 4.11, the nursing field faces an additional challenge due to a decreasing supply of nurses. This decrease, caused by factors such as retirement and increased tuition costs for nursing degrees, leads to changes in the supply curve, potentially resulting in higher salaries for nurses but an uncertain outcome on the equilibrium quantity of nurses available to meet the demand.