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. 2025 Aug 18;24(1):1083.
doi: 10.1186/s12912-025-03723-4.

"They don't know what it's really like:" qualitative insights into inpatient cardiac nurses' perceived workload

Ellen Benjamin  1   2 , Sarah Romain  3   4 , Cidalia Vital  3   5 , Connie Blake  3 , Cynthia Peterson  3   6 , Joohyun Chung  5
Affiliations

"They don't know what it's really like:" qualitative insights into inpatient cardiac nurses' perceived workload

Ellen Benjamin et al. BMC Nurs. .

Abstract

Background: Measurements of nursing workload often fail to reflect the complexity of nursing work. Nurses' perceived workload is shaped by many factors, including patient characteristics, personal, social, organizational, and environmental factors. There is a demonstrated interest in developing more comprehensive nurse workload measurement strategies, but little research has employed qualitative methods to investigate the beliefs and experiences of frontline staff. The purpose of this study was to explore inpatient nurses' perceptions of their workload and the factors that impact their percieved workload levels.

Methods: This was qualitative study using focus groups. Participants were recruited from the cardiac floors of an urban, academic medical center. A total of 17 nurses participated, including nurses from bedside, charge, educator, and nurse manager roles. Focus group transcripts were analyzed by a team of qualitative investigators using conventional content analysis.

Results: Inpatient nurses' perceived workload is shaped by their work volume, work attributes, and their ability to complete required tasks while providing meaningful, impactful care. The volume of nursing work is comprised of patient-focused, unit-focused, and institutional-focused tasks. Important work attributes include its perceived urgency, difficulty, alignment to the nurse and unit, interference, unpredictability, and individual nursing burden. Overall, participants expressed deep concern over high workloads that compromise holistic nursing care.

Conclusion: Strategies to more comprehensively measure nurses' perceived workload should account for the breadth and complexity of nursing work. Nurses should advocate for workload measurement systems that more closely reflect their subjective work experiences.

Clinical trial registration number: Not applicable.

Keywords: Inpatient; Nursing; Nursing work; Personnel staffing and scheduling; Qualitative research; Workload.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: This study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. It was reviewed and approved by the University of Massachusetts Amherst Institutional Review Board and the IRB of the participating health system. Informed consent was obtained from all paticipants using an electronic document prior to data collection. Consent for publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Inpatient nurses’ perceptions of workload
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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