Abstract: Objective: To establish a prognostic-related sensitive Post-Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU) nursing quality indicator system. Methods: Johns Hopkins evidence-based nursing method was used to synthesize the evidence. The sensitive indicators, connotations and calculation formula of PACU nursing quality were initially drawn up. Two-round Delphi method was used for screening, demonstration and correction. Results: Three first-level indicators (structure, process, and results), five second-level indicators (human resources, practice environment, nursing process, adverse events, and nursing effect), and eighteen three-level indicators (bed-to-nurse ratio, nurse satisfaction rate, nurse hand washing compliance, and integrity rate of emergency medicines and equipment, patient identification accuracy rate, intravenous administration accuracy rate, recovery assessment accuracy, pain assessment accuracy, anesthesia record sheet qualification rate, unplanned extubation rate, unplanned tracheal tube reintubation rate, unplanned rate ICU transfer rate, incidence of delayed recovery, incidence of aspiration, new incidence of skin pressure injury in PACU, incidence of bed fall, rewarming rate of hypothermia patients, and pain treatment efficiency) were established. The expert authority coefficients for the two rounds of expert inquiries were 0.90 and 0.91 respectively, the positive coefficients were 0.91 and 1.00, and the Kendall coordination coefficient was 0.30- 0.52 (all P<0.05). Conclusion: The sensitive indicators of nursing quality in PACU developed in this study, which supervises the quality of nursing from three aspects: structural quality, process quality, and result quality. The sensitive and prognostic-related nursing quality indicators can provide a basis for the evaluation and monitoring of nursing quality in PACU.

Key words: nursing quality; indicators; Post-Anesthesia Care Unit; Delphi method