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Review
. 2023 Apr 28;9(5):e15861.
doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e15861. eCollection 2023 May.

Rationing of nursing care: A concept analysis

Tayebeh Moradi  1 , Mohsen Adib-Hajbaghery  1 , Mansour Dianati  1 , Fatemeh Moradi  2
Affiliations
Review

Rationing of nursing care: A concept analysis

Tayebeh Moradi et al. Heliyon. .

Abstract

Rationing of nursing care (RONC) refers to necessary nursing tasks that nurses refuse or fail to do because of limited time, staffing level, or skill mix. As an important process factor, it affects the quality of patient care. The concept of rationing of nursing care has not yet been clearly defined and analyzed and there are different views regarding this issue. Using Walker and Avant's eight-step method, this concept analysis was conducted to analyze the meaning, attributes, dimensions, antecedents, and consequences of nursing care rationing. The literature was collected by searching in electronic databases including PubMed, ScienceDirect, Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar with no date limitation. Both qualitative and quantitative studies on rationing of nursing care, which were open-access and published in English, were included in this study. Thirty-three articles were investigated in the present study. The four defining attributes of RONC included the duty of performing nursing care, dealing with problems of doing nursing care, decision-making and prioritizing, and outcome. The antecedents included nurse-related, organization-related, care-related, and patient-related antecedents. A theoretical definition and a conceptual model of RONC were developed. The attributes, antecedents, and consequences of RONC identified in this study can be used in nursing education, research, and managerial and organizational planning.

Keywords: Concept analysis; Nursing; Rationing of nursing care.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Nursing care rationing.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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