Nurses’ and patients’ perceptions of caring behaviours: quantitative systematic review of comparative studies

Abstract

papastavrou e., efstathiou g. & charalambous a. (2011) Nurses’ and patients’ perceptions of caring behaviours: quantitative systematic review of comparative studies. Journal of Advanced Nursing67(6), 1191–1205. Abstract Aim. This paper is a report of a systematic review conducted to test the hypothesis that nurses and patients perceive the concept of caring in nursing differently. Background. Caring is viewed as the central focus of nursing. However, despite its fundamental place in clinical practice, researchers and scholars have failed in reaching a common definition. This failure has led to eliciting for nebulous interpretations of the concept often leading to perplexity and opposing views between patients and nurses. Data sources. Extensive search was conducted using MEDLINE, CINAHL and EMBASE between March and May 2009 with no publishing time limit and the keywords ‘care’, ‘caring’, ‘nurse’, ‘nursing’, ‘behavio(u)rs’, ‘patient’, ‘perception’, ‘quantitative’ and ‘comparative’. Review methods. This quantitative systematic review of comparative studies followed the guidance of the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination. A seven‐item ‘yes’ or ‘no’ checklist was developed and used for appraising the quality status of the selected literature. Narrative summary technique was used to report outcomes. Results. Evidence of incongruence of perceptions between patients and nurses is mainly supported by the literature. Few studies, however, report aspects of congruence. Conclusion. There is considerable evidence of the assertion that there is no congruence of perceptions between patients and nurses as regards to which behaviours are considered caring and intended caring is not always perceived as such by the patient. Further research is needed, however, to generate more knowledge on the relationship between caring behaviours, patient outcomes and health or nursing costs.

Meanings Given to Professional Care: Focus Group Results

“…Although not based upon focus group methodology, Papastavrou and colleagues [30] in a large survey with surgical patients and their nurses found that both patients and nurses perceived knowledge and skill as being the most important caring behaviors. However, they found differences in the importance of human presencing and respectful deference to others, whereas nurses perceived such behavior as being more important than the patients.…”

Student’s Perception of Missed Care: Focus Group Results

“…Because it has been reported that attempts to understand students' perspectives on what they perceive as missing care are seldom presented [7] [14], the aim of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore graduate nursing and pastoral care student's perceptions of missed care in Norway.…”

Examining of Caring In Traditional and Non-traditional Nursing Students

“…In summary, the nursing profession has long been recognized as a caring profession [2,3,[32][33][34][35][36]. Rhodes [37] found that incoming nursing students identified the essential quality for the nurse is caring.…”

“…Many qualities may be considered important, but the most vital quality is hat of caring as nursing has long been recognized as a caring profession [1][2][3]. Nurses have consistently been concerned with the human dimensions of healthcare and have been recognized as dealing holistically with patients [4].…”