This quantitative study aimed to identify the costs of the most frequent nursing activities in highly dependent hospitalized patients at a medical clinic. The non-probabilistic convenience sample corresponded to 607 observations regarding oral feeding activities (OF), blood pressure verification (BP) / heart rate (HR), body temperature checking (BTC), performance of intimate hygiene and management of feeding probe. The costs identified corresponded to R$2.40 (SD±2.64) for OF feeding; R$1.26 (SD±0.48) to verify the BP/HR; R$1.17 (SD±0.46) for BTC; R$15.59 (SD±8.62) to perform intimate hygiene and R$5.95 (SD±2.13) for management of feeding probe. This study will facilitate cost management, with a view to avoiding waste related to unnecessary resource consumption and establish a correlation between costs and care delivery results.
Nursing; Direct Service Costs; Costs and Cost Analysis; Cost Control
