Abstract

TIPAN-COELLO, Yadira; SANCHEZ-ALDAZ, Kimberly; GARCIA-ALBAN, Gabriela  and  ESCOBAR-MOROCHO, Dayana. Work overload in nursing staff in the first level care in Ecuador. Mem. Inst. Investig. Cienc. Salud [online]. 2024, vol.22, n.1, e22122408.  Epub Dec 30, 2024. ISSN 1812-9528.  https://doi.org/10.18004/mem.iics/1812-9528/2024.e22122408.

Work overload is defined as the situation in which the staff is faced with more tasks than they have the capacity to handle effectively, this limits the capacity and quality when providing direct care to different patients, the work performed by the staff is excessive, this study aims to measure the work overload that exists in the nursing staff of different type C health centers in Health Zone 3 in Ecuador. This is a quantitative, observational, descriptive study with a cross-sectional design that was carried out by applying the Santillán workload questionnaire in a census sample composed of 60 nursing professionals who work in Health Zone 3 in Ecuador, both the physical and mental load to which they are subjected were measured. The data was analyzed using the SPSS statistical program. The population was composed of nursing professionals with experience in the area and more than 6 months of work in the vaccination center. Although the professionals report that the mental load is greater than the physical load, the results show that the workload in general is medium. It is concluded that work overload exists in the surveyed personnel and this could lead to the commission of errors in the nursing actions.

Keywords : Community Health Nursing; Workload; Primary Health Care.

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