Assessment of workload in the postoperative period of cardiac surgery according to the Nursing Activities Score.

Objective Identify factors associated with the workload of nursing care for patients in the postoperative period of cardiac surgery. Method Prospective cohort study conducted with 187 patients in the surgical intensive care unit (ICU) of the Instituto do Coração(Heart Institute) in São Paulo-Brazil. Data were collected at 24 and 72 hours of the patients' admittance in the ICU. The dependent variable was workload as calculated by the Nursing Activities Score (NAS). The independent variables were demographic and clinical, as well as mortality scores. For data analysis, the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test and Spearman correlation were used, and linear regression with mixed effects model. Results The majority of patients were male (59.4%), with a mean age of 61 years (±12.7), and 43.9% developed some kind of complication in the postoperative period. In the first 24 hours, the workload was 82.4% (±3.4), and 58.1% (±3.4) in 72 hours. Factors associated with increased NAS were: patient's length of stay in the ICU (p=0.036) and the presence of complications (p<0.001). Conclusion In contrast to numerous other studies, the severity of the patient's condition in the first 24 hours of the postoperative period did not increase workload, the increase was associated with length of stay in the ICU and complications.