How many visitors per day does the typical inpatient have?

hiddencatRN, BSN, RN · Dec 7, 2010

I only just graduated, but that seems high based on my clinical experience in school (which I readily admit is limited!). Roughly half of my patients, or a little less, had 1 visitor a day.

Altra, BSN, RN · Dec 7, 2010

In my experience, this is highly variable.

Some patients have 1-2 during their entire stay, some have 2-3 groups of 4-5 visitors at a time, daily. So an average is meaningless. Also realize that "inpatients" runs the gamut from ICU patients who are sedated and in isolation precautions for whatever reason (which deters some visitors, but by no means all) to a post-partum mom who just gave birth to the family's first grandchild.

It might help your project considerably to break down at least several different types of inpatients, with different assumptions for each.

Mona77 · Dec 7, 2010

Don't forget about the cultural aspect.

My experience is thet patients of Eastern European and Arabic origin

are visited by larger groups and more frequent.

Penelope_Pitstop, BSN, RN · Dec 7, 2010

I think that sounds about right, actually. I work 7P-7A, but based on what I get in report and what patients tell me, the vast majority of them have 1 - 2 visitors per day. I do believe culture has something to do with it, as cultures with larger families tend to have more visitors, but over all I believe 1-2 is correct.

PostOpPrincess, BSN, RN · Dec 7, 2010

Too much variability.

Impossible to gauge.

Sonjailana · Dec 7, 2010

Too much variability.
Impossible to gauge.

Well, I doubt that. Data collection is what you need. Then you can know for sure what an accurate average is!

roser13, ASN, RN · Dec 8, 2010

Well, I doubt that. Data collection is what you need. Then you can know for sure what an accurate average is!

How do you propose that OP collect data?

RNperdiem, RN · Dec 8, 2010

I work weekend days. Many more visitors then.

On Saturday, one patient had no visitors, the other had maybe 15.

Many variables including, day of the week, time of the day, length of patient stay, how large a family/friends network etc.

Ruby Vee, BSN · Dec 8, 2010

too many!

noahsmama · Dec 8, 2010

It might help to know what you plan to use your model for?

An alternative way to get at the data might be to call hospitals and see if they can tell you their average number of visitors per day and their average patient census per day -- then you could divide to get average visitors per patient per day. Not sure who at the hospital you would call though, and whether they would have that data or share it if they did. But I suppose it couldn't hurt to try.

I agree with other comments that the number will be variable depending on the type of unit too. For example, in the peds hospital where I worked, most of our patients had at least one parent with them for most if not all day. We also had a policy limiting visitors to a max of 4 per patient at any one time, including the parents, so 2 additional visitors if both parents were there --- but they could have a lot more than 4 visitors over the course of a day, as long as they weren't all there at once.

If you count the parents as visitors, I'd say the average was maybe 2 to 3 per patient per day -- most kids had one parent but not both, most would have at least one other visitor on any given day, but some didn't have any other visitors, and some didn't even have a parent present. And of course there tend to be more visitors on weekends.

Hope that helps!

TakeOne · Dec 8, 2010

Well, I doubt that. Data collection is what you need. Then you can know for sure what an accurate average is!

There may be so much variability from patient to patient, day to day, week to week that, while it would be possible to calculate an average within a target population, it might end up just the meaningless center of a very wide range. That kind of inaccuracy would trash the results if used in a formal study, and would be laughably invalid if applied to inpatient populations in general.