You are here

Article Text

Article menu

Download PDFPDF

Public health
Original research
Relationship between staff experience and patient outcomes in hospital settings: an overview of reviews
  1. Peter Bragge1,
  2. Veronica Delafosse1,
  3. Paul Kellner1,
  4. Ngo Cong-Lem1,
  5. Diki Tsering1,
  6. Melita J Giummarra2,
  7. Natasha A Lannin2,
  8. Nadine Andrew2,
  9. Sandra Reeder2
  1. 1 Monash Sustainable Development Institute Evidence Review Service, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  2. 2 Department of Neurosciences, Faculty of Medicine Nursing and Health Sciences Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  1. Correspondence to Sandra Reeder; sandra.reeder{at}monash.edu

Abstract

Objectives This review aimed to investigate the relationship between staff experience and patient health and experience outcomes in hospital inpatient settings.

Design Systematic review of reviews.

Methods Searches were performed in Medline (OVID), CINAHL and Google Scholar using key terms from relevant review articles. The search was conducted on 28 August 2023. Inclusion criteria were systematic or narrative reviews in English from 2020 onwards, focusing on inpatients in hospital and related tertiary care facilities, examining the relationship between staff experience and patient outcomes. A review of reviews approach was used, with broad definitions for staff experience (eg, hospital culture, stress and burnout) and patient outcomes (eg, adverse events and patient experience). Independent screening and quality appraisal were conducted by two researchers. An evidence map of links between staff experience and patient outcomes was created. The methodological quality of systematic reviews was assessed using the AMSTAR 2 tool and narrative reviews with the SANRA tool.

Results From 2365 citations, 21 reviews (18 systematic, 3 narrative) were included. Review quality ranged from moderate to high. Mapping revealed 66 associations between staff experience and patient outcomes. Common associations included burnout, stress and fatigue with adverse events (six reviews); communication with patient satisfaction (four reviews) and teamwork with patient satisfaction (four reviews).

Conclusions Staff burnout, teamwork and communication practices directly impact adverse events and patient satisfaction. These findings guide hospital managers and clinicians in improving health service policies and practices. Further research is needed to strengthen the evidence base.

  • Hospitals
  • Work Satisfaction
  • Patient Reported Outcome Measures
  • Patient Satisfaction
  • Systematic Review

Data availability statement

Data are available upon reasonable request. All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2024-091942

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Data availability statement

    Data are available upon reasonable request. All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • X @BraggePeter, @NatashaLannin, @AndrewNadine

    • Contributors PB, NAL, SR and MJG conceptualised the study. PB, NC-L and VD designed the protocol, with feedback from MJG, NAL, NA and SR. PB, PK, DT, VD and NC-L ran the database search and oversaw the search, screening, full-text review, data extraction and quality assessment processes. PB and SR drafted the manuscript. All authors reviewed the draft, provided critical review and read and approved the final manuscript. The corresponding author, as guarantor, accepts full responsibility for the finished article has access to any data and controlled the decision to publish. The corresponding author attests that all listed authors meet the authorship criteria and that no others meeting the criteria have been omitted.

    • Funding This review is part of a larger project commissioned by Alfred Health.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting or dissemination plans of this research.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.