We examined time spent on nursing bedside education
and care management in two ways: total hours spent
over the course of the rehabilitation stay and a calculated
value of mean minutes per week. Reporting both
total hours and minutes per week was necessary to
overcome the effect of LOS on time spent on education.
For example, the paraplegia group received fewer total
hours of education over the course of the rehabilitation
stay than the two tetraplegia groups; however, LOS typically
is shorter for patients with paraplegia. This group
actually spent more time per week in education than all other injury groups.We hypothesize the reason for these
findings is that nurses identify the type and amount of
education needed to accomplish discharge goals and
fit the education into the time that is available, so
patients with shorter lengths of stay may get more
intense education in less time