• Mokgadi C Matlakala and Annali D H Botha.
• Department of Health Studies, University of South Africa (UNISA), P.O. Box 392, Pretoria 0003, South Africa. Electronic address: matlamc@unisa.ac.za.
• Intensive Crit Care Nurs. 2016 Feb 1; 32: 49-57.

AimTo explore the views of the intensive care unit (ICU) nurse managers regarding nurse staffing in the large ICUs.Design And MethodsA qualitative design was used to explore the views of the ICU managers. Four individual interviews were conducted with ICU managers. The interviews were audio recorded; transcribed verbatim and content data analysis was undertaken. The settings were ICUs of four private hospitals in the Tshwane metropolitan area in Gauteng Province, South Africa.ResultsTwo themes that emerged from the data were shortage of competent and trained nurses and problems with agency nurses. Shortage of competent and trained nurses was associated with the global shortage of nurses; and led to increased patient-to-nurse ratios and the use of other categories of nurses, other than professional nurses. The problems with agency nurses were lack of ICU experience and lack of commitment to their professional work. These brought about risks in the provision of quality nursing care.ConclusionsAdequate numbers of competent and committed nurses is essential for efficient patient care and favourable outcomes in the ICUs.Clinical ImplicationsThe findings demonstrate the importance of provision of ICU trained nurses for patient care, rather than nurse staffing simply to balance the numbers.Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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