Vivenciando a prática do dimensionamento de pessoal de enfermagem em uma UTI neonatal: relato de experiência

Abstract

Introduction: In health institutions, one of the most complex places where nursing operates is the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), whose care is intended for critical newborns who require qualified nursing care, on a continuous and comprehensive basis. To achieve this, it is essential to have a qualified nursing team in sufficient quantity to meet the growing demand for care. Calculating nursing staff sizing is an essential management tool that helps reduce the incidence of adverse events. It is a topic that should be incorporated into academia, through extension projects, as a pedagogical alternative to bring students closer to professional practice and enable the construction of interdisciplinary knowledge, beyond the classroom. Objectives: To describe the experience of a nursing student in the practice of dimensioning nursing staff in a neonatal therapy unit (NICU) of a university hospital, highlighting the factors that hinder and facilitate the process and discuss the student's perceptions in the curricular context of the nursing management discipline of the course. Method: This is a descriptive study, of the experience report type, on a Teaching Project of the Undergraduate Scholarship Program at the Federal University of Uberlândia (UFU). Results: Nursing staff sizing involves a complex multi-step process, ranging from activity planning, study of service characteristics, evaluation of instruments available to assess patient complexity, legislation, evaluation of occupancy rates, absences, the characteristics of professionals, etc. The instruments used were NAS and ICTN. The instruments were applied over a period of 116 days, between July/2022 and November/2022. The facilitating points of the process were the collaboration of the team to understand the routine of an extremely restricted sector and the main difficulties were learning to use the instruments according to the very peculiar reality of the NICU. There was a clear perception that the UFU undergraduate nursing course needs to incorporate practical management activities into curricular projects, enabling more effective teaching and learning. Conclusion: The extension project was a very useful strategy to experience and understand the dimensioning of nursing staff in a hospital unit as a whole, especially the difficulties of the process. This pedagogical strategy should be incorporated into the management II discipline of the UFU nursing course.