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Abstract

Caring is the essential element of nursing. It maintains human dignity in health care systems as a moral principle and measure of intervention and treatment. In other words, a high quality caring is the right of all patients and a responsibility of all caregiver nurses. As patients are the recipients of care, it is important to identify their perceptions of caring. This was a descriptive, comparative, cross-sectional study to examine the relationships between patient’s perceptions of nurse caring behaviors and nurse’s perceptions of nurse caring behaviors in cardiothoracic setting. Data was collected using 24item caring behaviors inventory from twenty eight nurse patient dyads. Findings showed that, no significant differences exist in patient’s and nurse’s perceptions of nurse caring behaviors. Patients rated assurance dimension as highest while nurses rated knowledge skill dimension as highest. Both patients and nurses rated connectedness dimension as lowest. The results are useful in their own and in similar settings because they can be used by staff nurses to improve nursing care by refining the way they provide care to patients, and encourage nurses to ask patients about their expectations of care while in the hospital.

Keywords: Caring; Nurse Caring; Caring Behaviors; Patient Perspective. 

Corresponding Author : Ramya K.R., Assistant Professor, Jubilee Mission College of Nursing and Lead Quality, Jubilee Mission Medical College and Research Institute, Thrissur, Kerala 680006, India.