Statewide Survey of Illinois Nurses

March 2007

Methodology

AFSCME conducted a survey among a random sample of the 126,000 registered nurses licensed with the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.  A total of 807 registered nurses throughout Illinois were surveyed from February 12 to February 16 and the margin of error for the results is 3.5%.

Key Findings

Illinois nurses overwhelmingly identify inadequate nurse staffing as the BIGGEST PROBLEM in nursing care in hospitals. 

Nurses were asked what they thought was the biggest problem in nursing care in hospitals they were familiar with, and five issues frequently cited in research on nursing care were listed: 

Nurses don't have appropriate training                                         40            5%

Inadequate staffing-too many patients                                        620          77%

Not enough support staff                                                                52            6%

Inadequate equipment/supplies                                                     12            1%

Poor communication between doctors and nurses                     36            4%

Don't know/refused to answer                                                        48            6%

The vast majority of Illinois nurses believe that a bill that would set minimum nurse staffing ratios would improve patient care.

Nurses were informed that several Illinois lawmakers have proposed a bill that would establish minimum nurse staffing ratios in hospitals  – for example nurses in medical/surgical units could be required to care for no more than four patients.  They were asked how they thought this law would affect patient care.

Improve patient care                                              661      82% 

Worsen patient care                                                66        8%   

Have no effect on patient care                              51        6%   

Don’t know/refused to answer                             30        4%   

Virtually every nurse surveyed rated increasing the number of nurses caring for patients in hospitals as very important - more than any of the other seven improvement measurers listed.

Nurses were asked to rate the importance of various factors that have been cited as effective measurers for improving the quality of nursing care in hospitals.

The vast majority of Illinois nurses believe that overwork and burnout, requiring nurses to care for too many patients, is a very important factor in the shortage of nurses in hospitals.

Nurses were asked to rank the importance of various factors related to the shortage of nurses available to work in hospitals. 

The majority of nurses working in hospitals report that their hospitals are understaffed and that the time they have for direct patient care has dropped. 

Nurses providing direct patient care in hospitals, 63% say that their hospitals are either routinely or sometimes understaffed.  Fifty-one percent say the time available for direct patient care has decreased.

Directly contradicting the hospital industry’s claim that the nurse shortage would make it difficult to improve nurse staffing, more than half the hospital nurses report that hospital management reduces their hours when there are fewer-than-expected patients. 

When asked how often hospital management reduces hours that nurses work or otherwise reduces nurse staffing because of low patient census, over 60% say such reductions occur often or sometimes.  Only 4% answered that their unit was always fully staffed.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) represents 1.4 million members in the U.S., including over 300,000 in the health care industry.  Here in Illinois, AFSCME Council 31 has been working with HEART (Healthcare Employees Acting Resurrection Together) and other nurses from around the state, to address the disturbingly high levels of preventable deaths and injuries in Illinois hospitals.