RESUMO
AIMS: To survey the types of Electronic Nursing Records used and to explore nurses' perceptions in the hospitals in Henan Province, China. BACKGROUND: There are few studies about status of electronic nursing documents from nurses' view. METHOD: A cross-sectional study of 3,586 nurses using a web-based questionnaire was conducted. RESULTS: Approximately 98% of the nurses were college graduates or had higher degrees, with 46% of the nurses managed more than nine beds per nurse each day. About 27% spent more than two hours daily writing records with a further 38% spending between 1 and 2 hr. However, only 52% realized professional nursing records should be archived and fewer than 80% knew the importance and significance of preserving fundamental nursing records. CONCLUSION: Although nurses' educational level in Henan is high, the younger age of them (i.e., less experience) and heavy workload may lead to inferior quality of ENR. Nurses' awareness of the importance and legal significance of documents needs improvement. IMPLICATION FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Our results may provide detailed evidence of the time consuming as well as nurses' knowledge of, abilities in, and opinions about record-keeping in developed countries and bring potential clinical implications for the nursing managers worldwide.