ArticleFrontiers in medicine2026
Professional, social, and demographic correlates of nursing care rationing: insights from hospital nurses in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia.
Article in Frontiers in medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction: Nursing care rationing is an increasingly common problem in healthcare systems. It results in reduced quality of care, decreased patient satisfaction, and an increased risk of medical errors. The aim of this study was to assess the level and patterns of nursing care rationing and to examine associations between rationing and selected demographic and professional characteristics of hospital nurses in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted between March 2024 and March 2025. The study included 610 licensed nurses working in hospitals in Zlín, Czech Republic (151), Białystok, Poland (245) and Ružomberok, Slovakia (214). The study was conducted using the standardized BERNCA-R scale. The frequency of omitting 32 nursing activities was assessed, and correlations with demographic and professional factors were analyzed. Data were examined using descriptive statistics, Kruskal-Wallis tests, and Spearman's rank correlations. Results: The mean overall BERNCA-R score differed slightly between the hospital samples. Demographic and professional characteristics-including age, marital status, parenthood, education, and years of experience-were not significantly associated with the overall level of rationing. In contrast, the type of hospital ward showed a stronger association with rationing patterns, with emergency departments reporting the highest frequency of omitted nursing activities. Analysis of individual BERNCA-R items indicated that activities requiring extended patient communication, assessment, or monitoring were more likely to be rationed, whereas basic hygiene-related tasks were rarely omitted. Conclusion: The findings suggest that nursing care rationing in hospital settings is more strongly associated with organizational and workload-related factors than with individual nurse characteristics. Efforts to reduce rationing should therefore focus on improving staffing structures, workflow organization, and working conditions, particularly in high-intensity clinical environments.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.