Nurses' and patients' viewpoints regarding quality of nursing care in the teaching hospitals of Semnan University of Medical Sciences, 2009

Abstract

Introduction: Nursing care is an essential component of health services. Patient's health and improvement depends on the quality of nursing care. Nurses and patients views as well as their active participation for making decision have an important role in quality of services, so it must be regarded as a principle. The purpose of this research was to study nurses' and patients' viewpoints regarding quality of nursing care in teaching hospital of Semnan (Iran). Materials and Methods: In this descriptive-comparative study, 52 nurses and 300 patients from internal, surgical, gynecology and pediatric wards of Fatemieh and Amir Hospitals were selected by systematic sampling. Nursing care quality was assessed in psychotic, social and communicative aspects using a Quality Patient Care Scale questioner. The questioner had 41 questions with 3 answer choices (rarely, occasionally and usually) that marked from 1 to 3. Mean scores were calculated for all subjects and then were categorized in undesirable (less than 1.5), low desirable (1.5-2.49) and desirable (2.5-5) groups. Results: 31.6 % of patients and 92.6% of nurses evaluated psychotic-social aspect of care quality as desirable. The desirability percent for communicative aspect of care quality was 24.7% in patients and 56.8% in nurses. There was a significant statistical difference between patients and nurses views in both aspects (P<0.001). In psychosocial aspect, 73.5% of patients expressed that nurses do not introduce themselves and 77.9% of them expressed that nurses rarely introduce new patients to other patients. In communicative aspect, 42.5% of patients declared that they ensured about their secrets rarely. Conclusion: Nurses' and patients' viewpoints on quality of nursing care were different because of their various experiences and insight. Thus, re-evaluation of the quality standards of nursing care based on client approach, choosing some strategies to increase nurse-patient communication and considering psycho-social patients needs seems to be a necessity