Nursing interventions in pediatric care: a contribution to measuring workload

Objective To identify and validate interventions/activities developed by a nursing team in a Brazilian pediatric unit. Method A descriptive, cross-sectional, and observational study was developed in the pediatric clinic of the university hospital of University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil. It was organized in the following stages: identifying activities carried out by the team (from records in patient charts and from direct observation); mapping out and validating activities identified in interventions according to the Nursing Intervention Classification (NIC). Results The 275 identified activities were mapped out into 63 interventions, 22 NIC classes and 7 NIC domains, and 25 associated and 13 personal activities. After validation, the number of activities decreased to 244, corresponding to 53 interventions, 20 NIC classes and 6 NIC domains, and 30 associated activities and 9 personal activities. Conclusion Identifying the interventions/activities performed by the nursing team can help measure workload and is an important contribution to overcoming difficulties when it comes to operationalizing the process of sizing professional teams in the field of pediatrics.