Abstract:
Length of Stay (LOS) is a significant indicator of nursing care quality. This quasiexperimental two-group posttest only design aimed to examine effect of the nurses decision making activities on LOS of patients with brain tumor after surgery. A purposive sample of brain tumor patients who received surgery for the first time at a tertiary hospital, Bangkok was recruited in the study. Twenty participants in the intervention group receiving the nurses decision making activities program while the other of 20 participants in the control group received usual nursing care. Data collection was carried out from January to September 2016. Research instruments included the guideline and handout of nurses decision making activities and a demographic and LOS record form. Data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics and t-test. The results revealed that the mean LOS of the intervention and the control groups were not statistically significant difference (p> .05). However, the LOS of participants in the intervention group was shorter than those in the control group (13.0 and 14.6, respectively). This finding indicates that the nurses clinical decision making activities were useful and could be applied for actual nursing practice, particularly in a ward with similar context. Yet, repeated studies with a large sample size are required.