Purpose: A national study to register all working nursing personnel and nursing students; to estimate the nursing needs of the Greek population beyond the year 2000; to design a nursing resource master plan for the nursing needs of Greece.
Design: First, a questionnaire was distributed to register all nursing personnel. Second, required personnel were estimated according to the population of each of the country's regions. Third, a master plan for developing nursing personnel to the year 2010 was developed.
Results: The number of nursing personnel was found to be 35,715 which included 11,497 RNs and health visitors, 22,318 assistant nurses, 1,900 midwives. The number of students was 9,252. The majority of nursing personnel work in areas with the highest population. The need for nursing personnel was estimated to be 62,000: 36,300 RNs, 21,700 assistant nurses and 4,000 midwives.
Conclusions: There is a serious shortage of RNs in the Greek health services resulting in a downgrading of nursing care quality.