The importance of nurse caring behaviors as

perceived by patients receiving care at an

emergency department
Gy∂⁄ a Baldursdottir, MS, RN,a and Helga Jonsdottir, PhD, RN,b Reykjavik, Iceland

BACKGROUND: Increased workload at the emergency department (ED) and the shortage of nurses
may leave some patients without proper care. The importance of patients’ perceptions of caring is vital
when organizing nursing practice under such circumstances.
PURPOSE: The purpose of the study was to identify which nurse caring behaviors are perceived by
patients in an ED as important indicators of caring. The nurse caring behaviors were categorized in
terms of relative importance with respect to demographic variables and perceived illness. Watson’s the-
ory of caring was used as a theoretic framework for this quantitative and descriptive study.
METHOD: A 61-item questionnaire designed on the basis of Cronin and Harrison’s Caring Behaviors
Assessment tool, which reflected the 10 carative factors of Watson’s theory, was mailed to 300 ED
patients. The response rate was 60.7%.
RESULTS: Results showed that subjects scored the items “Know what they are doing”, “Know when
it is necessary to call the doctor”, “Know how to give shots, IVs, etc.”, and “Know how to handle equip-
ment” as the most important nurse caring behaviors. The subscale “human needs assistance” was
ranked highest.
CONCLUSION: In line with several previous studies, subjects considered clinical competence to be the
most important nurse caring behavior, which further emphasizes the notion of caring as a moral stance
integral to all interactions with patients. (Heart Lung® 2002;31:67-75.)

D eclining quality of hospital care is of great

concern to patients and health workers
alike. Hospitals are increasingly functioning
with far too limited resources. Increased demand
for cost-effective hospital management and steadi-
ly growing numbers of older patients, who present
new and more complex health problems, has
raised concerns as to where health care service is
going. Rising numbers of patient admissions to
hospitals, cuts in the number of hospital beds, and
an increasing shortage of nurses only aggravate this
situation and thrust much of management’s frustra-
tions to the hospital units where there is limited
margin for increased productivity.1-4
From the aEmergency department at University Hospital and
bUniversity of Iceland and University Hospital.
Reprints are not available from author.
Copyright © 2002 by Mosby, Inc.
0147-9563/2002/$35.00 + 0 2/1/119835
doi:10.1067/mhl.2002.119835
This situation exists particularly in emergency
departments (EDs). Rising patient admissions,
longer stays in the ED because of lack of hospital
beds in medical and surgical units, and premature
discharge have made nurses question their capac-
ity to meet the needs and expectations of patients.
Increasing workloads make nurses prioritize care to
the most seriously ill patients, which risks leaving
some patients neglected; however, neglect is unac-
ceptable to both nurses and patients. Increasing
patient consumerism only adds to the prevailing
pressure on health care workers, leaving little or no
leeway for mistakes.5-7
Patients’ perceptions of how they want to be
cared for is reflected in many studies on quality of
care.6,8-16 Complaints of poor attitude among
health care workers toward patients appear to be
increasing in Iceland because of the perception
that health care professionals are increasingly dis-
tancing themselves from patients and giving

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Nurse caring behaviors
impersonal care.17 It is, therefore, of the utmost
importance to know how Icelandic patients per-
ceive hospital nursing care and to compare these
results with previous studies on the subject,
because nursing care is the single most significant
factor in the patient’s perception of high-quality
hospital care.9,18-23
LITERATURE REVIEW
Caring as a concept
Caring as an essential element of nursing is
widely accepted among nurses.24-28 Nurses’ caring
approach is believed to enhance the patient’s
health and well-being and to facilitate health pro-
motion.10,25,29 As yet, no universal definition or con-
ceptualization of caring exists,30,31 but several have
been put forward. One of these is Watson’s theory
of caring.
Underlying Watson’s theory is a value system on
the basis of deep respect for the wonders and mys-
teries of life.28 Recognition and acknowledgment of
the value of caring in nursing practice come before
and presuppose actual caring. The essence of the
theory is reflected in Watson’s proposition of caring
as the moral ideal of nursing, in which the result is
enrichment and protection of human dignity. This
ideal involves values, will and commitment, knowl-
edge, caring actions, and consequences. These
premises guide nursing practice and are manifest-
ed in it, particularly as they relate to the nurse
being responsive to the uniqueness of each indi-
vidual and to the preservation of feelings for oth-
ers.28 The following 10 carative factors, combined
with a scientific knowledge base and clinical com-
petence, guide nursing actions to promote health,
prevent illness, care for the sick, and restore
health: humanistic-altruistic system of values; faith-
hope, sensitivity to self and others; helping-trust-
ing, human care relationship; expressing positive
and negative feelings; creative problem-solving
caring process; transpersonal teaching-learning;
supportive, protective, and/or corrective mental,
physical, societal, and spiritual environment; human
needs assistance; and existential-phenomenologi-
cal–spiritual forces.27
In addition to Watson, many researchers have
conceptualized the caring of nurses from a variety
of perspectives. In an attempt to synthesize the dif-
ferent perspectives into a coherent structure,
Morse et al30,32 analyzed the content of 35 authors’
definitions of caring and the main characteristics of
each perspective. Five categories of caring were
identified. The first category describes caring as a
68 www.mosby.com/hrtlng
Baldursdottir and Jonsdottir
human trait, reflecting caring as “a part of human
nature, and essential to human existence.”30 In the
second category, caring is regarded as a moral
imperative or ideal and referred to as a fundamen-
tal value in nursing. The emphasis is on preserving
the individual’s dignity or integrity. The third cate-
gory emphasizes that the nature of caring has its
origin in emotional involvement and compassion-
ate or empathic feeling for the patient’s experi-
ence. This perspective reflects nursing as a female
profession with historical roots in religion. The
fourth category considers caring to be an interper-
sonal relationship and indicates that caring is a
mutual endeavor of the nurse and the patient,
encompassing both the feelings and the behaviors
that occur within relationships. Caring as a thera-
peutic intervention is the last category; it is
patient-centered and action-oriented. As Morse et
al30,32 pointed out, it is difficult to locate writings on
caring in the nursing literature that encompass only
1 of these categories. Watson’s theory may primari-
ly be considered a moral ideal, but it also stresses
the notion of caring as an interpersonal relation-
ship and therapeutic intervention.
Nurse caring behaviors
Cronin and Harrison10 were the first to develop
an instrument that they named the Caring Behavior
Assessment (CBA) tool, on the basis of Watson’s
theory, that reflects Watson’s carative factors. The
instrument consists of 63 nursing behavior indica-
tors distributed across 7 subscales, instead of the
10 described by Watson. The subscales are human-
ism/faith-hope/sensitivity, helping/trust, expression
of positive/negative feelings, teaching/learning, sup-
portive/protective/corrective environment, human
needs assistance, and existential/phenomenologi-
cal/spiritual forces. The tool was used in this study
as the operationalization of the caring concept.
Four previous studies using the CBA instrument
have been done, all in the United States (Table I).
Thus this is the first international study using the
CBA tool.
As Table I shows, the item “Know what they are
doing,” which belongs to the humanism/faith-
hope/sensitivity subscale, scored highest as a sin-
gle item in 4 of 5 studies and “human needs assis-
tance” rated highest as a subscale. The study that
deviated from the group showed that patients
with HIV/AIDS regarded “treat me as an individual”
as the most important item.15 According to
Mullins,15 the results indicated that, because of the
nature of the disease, persons with HIV/AIDS might
be in more need of being accepted and cared for
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Baldursdottir and Jonsdottir Nurse caring behaviors

Table I
Studies using the caring behaviors assessment tool (CBA)

Results

Most important Highest ranked

Authors Subjects (No.) CBA item CBA subscale

Cronin and Patients after myocardial 1. Know what they are 1. Human needs
Harrison, 1988 infarction (22) doing assistance
2. Make me feel someone is 2. Teaching/learning
there if I need them
Huggins, Gandy, Patients visiting ED 1. Know what they are doing 1. Human needs assistance
and Kohut, 1993 (288) 2. Know how to handle
sudden emergencies
Parson, Kee, Perioperative 1. Know what they are doing 1. Human needs assistance
and Gray, 1993 patients (19) 2. Be kind, considerate 2. Teaching/learning
Mullins, 1996 HIV/AIDS patients (46) 1. Treat me as an individual Not reported
2. Know what they are doing
Marini, 1999 Older adult residing in 1. Know what they are doing 1. Human needs assistance
institutional settings (21) 2. Know when it is necessary 2. Humanism/faith-hope/
to call the doctor sensitivity

with respect and dignity than various other groups
of patients.
STUDY PURPOSE AND RESEARCH
QUESTIONS
The purpose of the study was to identify nursing
behaviors that patients perceived to be indicators
of caring in the ED and to categorize these indica-
tors in terms of relative importance.
The following research questions are the basis
for the study:
1. Which nurse caring behaviors are perceived
as most important and least important by
patients in the ED?
2. Do patients’ perceptions of nurse caring
behaviors differ according to demographic
factors, that is, age, residence (capital city vs
outside the capital city area), educational
level, gender, and perception of illness?
Theoretic definitions
The definition of caring used in this study is the
one used by Cronin and Harrison,10 originating
from Watson28: “Caring is the process by which the
nurse becomes responsive to another person as a
unique individual, perceives the other’s feelings,
and sets that person apart from the ordinary.” The
definition of nurse caring behaviors was developed
by Cronin and Harrison,10 referring to “Those things
that a nurse says or does that communicate caring
to the patient.”
Assumptions
The following assumptions were made:
1. Basic components of nursing care provided
in the ED where the study took place are the
same for each patient, regardless of which
nurse provides the care.
2. Potential participants are able to identify the
professional status of the nurses as distinct
from both licensed practical nurses and
nursing students.
METHODOLOGY
Study design
This study was a nonexperimental, quantitative,
descriptive study using an instrument developed
and applied earlier by Cronin and Harrison.10
Although in part a replication study, this study dif-
fers from Cronin and Harrison’s work in that it was
conducted on the basis of a much larger sample
size with a broad range of illness experiences and
age spectrum. This study was also carried out in a
health care system different from the previous one
(ie, in Iceland). The University Hospital in Reyk-

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Nurse caring behaviors
javik, Iceland (UHI) was chosen as a place of entry,
the ED in particular because of the variety of
patients who visit it, many of whom are entering the
hospital, a strange and unfamiliar environment, for
the first time.
Sample and setting
The population was defined as adult patients
who received service in the ED at UHI. The sample
was a nonprobability convenience sample of adult
patients (18 years or older) who received care in
the ED at UHI during a 1-month period and were
discharged from the ED without being admitted to
another hospital unit. Patients admitted to other
hospital units were excluded to avoid influence
from care received at other units.
A list with the names of prospective participants
was obtained from the ED at UHI after approval
from the Ethical Committee of UHI. Three hundred
patients who were admitted to the ED during 1
month fulfilled the above criteria. The instrument,
in the form of a questionnaire, was mailed to their
homes.
Instrumentation
The instrument that was used for data collection
was a questionnaire developed by Cronin and Har-
rison, the CBA tool, described earlier. Cronin and
Harrison10 established face and content validity of
the CBA tool using a panel of 4 content specialists
who were familiar with Watson’s theory. Internal
consistency reliability was determined by using the
study sample responses to calculate Cronbach α
for each of the 7 subscales. Cronbach α ranged from
0.66 to 0.90. In the present study, internal consis-
tency reliability was determined in the same way,
with reliability coefficients ranging from 0.69 to 0.89.
In translating the CBA tool from English to Ice-
landic, attempts were made to account for transla-
tion equivalency, congruence in value orientation,
and careful use of colloquialism.33 Three bilingual
nurses who were familiar with the topic made the
translation into Icelandic. Two bilingual persons
were then asked to make sure that the Icelandic
version was understandable for a layperson. Then 2
bilingual persons, a nurse and a non-nurse familiar
with the topic, but not familiar with the English ver-
sion, back-translated the Icelandic version. Finally,
the group of 7 persons refined both transla-
tions.33,34 The group agreed that 2 items should be
omitted from the Icelandic version: The first item is
“Ask me what I like to be called,” because in Ice-
land everyone is called by his or her given name
and not by family name, regardless of whether
70 www.mosby.com/hrtlng
Baldursdottir and Jonsdottir
known to the person by whom he or she is being
addressed. The second item is “Visit me if I move
to another hospital unit,” which was not relevant,
because to be included in the study one had to be
discharged home after the ED visit. The items in
each subscale ranged from 3 to 12, and the 2
dropped items in the Icelandic version were both
from the same subscale, helping/trust, which con-
tains 9 items in the present study instead of 11 as
in Cronin and Harrison’s study.10
The instrument, now consisting of 61 items, was
pilot tested with 20 patients aged 20 to 75 years,
but these results were not incorporated into the
main study. Several minor comments were submit-
ted and some used for revision, such as sugges-
tions about the layout of the instrument.
Procedure
Subjects were requested to rate their percep-
tion of each of the nurse caring behavior items on a
5-point, Likert-type scale of relative importance. In
addition, patients were given an opportunity in the
questionnaire to make brief additional remarks to
the open-ended question of whether there was
anything else that nurses could say or do to make
the patients feel cared for. Demographic informa-
tion on age, residence, gender, and education was
collected as well. Responses to the open-ended
question did not add new perspectives to the
responses in the questionnaire itself and have
been omitted from this article.
Two weeks after being discharged, every patient
in the sample received an envelope in the mail
that contained the following:
1. A questionnaire
2. A letter from the first author that explained
the study and requested the patient’s con-
sent to participate in the study. If the
patient decided to answer the questionnaire
and return it, this was considered to be
signed consent.
3. A return envelope, stamped and addressed,
for the patient to return the completed
questionnaire.
Two weeks later, a follow-up letter and a new
copy of the questionnaire were sent to the
patients, urging the return of the questionnaire.
After 2 more weeks, a third and last letter and a
new copy of the questionnaire were sent out, again
urging a return.
The mailing of 300 questionnaires resulted in a
60.7% (n = 182) response rate usable for data analy-
sis. Of the 300 prospective participants, 56.7% (n =
170) were women and 43.3% (n = 130) were men. Of
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Baldursdottir and Jonsdottir Nurse caring behaviors

Table II
The mean and standard deviation (SD) for the 10 most important nurse caring behaviors

Item Mean (SD)

1. Know what they are doing 4.94 (0.28)

2. Know when it is necessary to call the doctor 4.93 (0.26)
3. Know how to give shots, IVs, etc. 4.91 (0.39)
4. Know how to handle equipment 4.91 (0.36)
5. Answer my questions clearly 4.85 (0.41)
6. Treat me as an individual 4.83 (0.40)
7. Give my treatments and medication on time 4.83 (0.43)
8. Do what they say they will do 4.80 (0.45)
9. Be kind and considerate 4.77 (0.53)
10. Check my condition very closely 4.77 (0.52)

Table III
The mean and standard deviation (SD) for the 10 least important nurse caring behaviors

Item Mean (SD)

1.Talk to me about life outside the hospital 3.15 (1.23)

2.Touch me when I need it for comfort 3.78 (1.19)
3.Praise my effort 3.81 (0.99)
4.Know when I have “had enough” and act accordingly 3.87 (1.08)
(for example, limiting visitors)
5. Help me understand my feelings 3.88 (1.12)
6. Be sensitive to my feelings and moods 3.99 (0.95)
7. Ask me how I like things done 4.02 (0.94)
8. Encourage me to talk about how I feel 4.03 (1.00)
9. Help me plan for my discharge from the hospital 4.03 (0.99)
10. Encourage me to believe in myself 4.09 (0.96)

the 182 usable questionnaires, 57.1% (n = 104) were
from women and 42.9% (n = 78) were from men par-
ticipants.
Data analysis
Mean scores and standard deviations were cal-
culated for each questionnaire item to find the
most and least important nurse caring behaviors
and item variability. All items were then grouped
into subscales and the overall mean for each indi-
vidual was calculated for each subscale. Overall
item means for each of the subscales were also cal-
culated to determine the rank distribution of the
subscales. The nonparametric Mann-Whitney U
test and Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of vari-
ance were used to examine response to the CBA,
according to the demographic variables of age,
gender, residence, educational level, and per-
ceived illness. The level of significance (α) was set
at P < .05.
RESULTS
Ratings of CBA items
For each of the 61 items in the CBA tool, mean
scores and standard deviations were calculated.
Summaries of the 10 most important and 10 least
important behaviors are listed in Tables II and III.
Means ranged from a high of 4.94 for the most
important item (“Know what they are doing”) to a
low of 3.15 for the least important item (“Talk to me
about my life outside the hospital”).

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Nurse caring behaviors Baldursdottir and Jonsdottir

Table IV
Ratings for the CBA subscales

Rank Subscale No. of items Mean (SD)

1 Human needs assistance 9 4.68 (0.379)

2 Supportive/protective/corrective environment 12 4.41 (0.655)
3 Teaching/learning 8 4.38 (0.612)
4 Humanism/faith-hope/sensitivity 16 4.35 (0.483)
5 Helping/trust 9 4.32 (0.523)
6 Existential/phenomenological/spiritual forces 3 4.27 (0.784)
7 Expression of positive/negative feelings 4 4.12 (0.756)

Table V
Results of subscale comparisons by sex and residence

Sex Residence

Subscale U P U P

1. Humanism/faith-hope/sensitivity 2966 .002* 1383 .446

2. Helping/trust 3268 .025* 1510 .859
3. Expression of positive/negative feelings 3132 .008* 1142 .059
4. Teaching/learning 3500 .112 1360 .383
5. Supportive/protective/corrective environment 2886 .001* 1521 .899
6. Human needs assistance 2939 .002* 1214 .123
7. Existential/phenomenological/spiritual forces 3353 .054 1.356 .383

U, Mann-Whitney U test.
*P < .05.

Ratings for the CBA subscales
When items had been grouped into the 7 sub-
scales, a mean for all items in each subscale was
calculated for each patient. The overall subscale
means and standard deviations for each subscale
were then calculated on the basis of the patient
means. The subscale rating is shown in Table IV,
demonstrating that “Human needs assistance” is
the most important subscale and “Expression of
positive/negative feelings” is the least important.
Differences in perceptions of caring
Seven subscales that measure nurse caring
behaviors were compared with perceived illness
and 4 demographic variables: gender, residence,
age, and education (Tables V and VI). The results of
a Mann-Whitney U test on the subscales, in relation
to gender and residence, demonstrate that women
score significantly higher than men in subscales 1,
2, 3, 5, and 6 (Table V) and that no significant resi-
dential differences were found with respect to any
of the subscales.
The results of the Kruskal-Wallis one way analy-
sis of variance on the subscales in relation to age,
educational level, and how the subjects perceived
their illness (Table VI) showed significant age differ-
ences for every subscale (ie, the higher the age of
subjects’, the greater the importance of nurse caring
behaviors). Significant educational differences were
found for subscales 1, 3, 4, and 7. Subjects with low
educational levels scored significantly higher on
these 4 subscales. No significant differences were
found for subscales 1 to 7 with respect to how sick
the patients perceived themselves to be.

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Baldursdottir and Jonsdottir Nurse caring behaviors

Table VI
Results of subscale comparison by age, education, and perceived illness

Age Education level Perceived illness

(df = 7) (df = 5) (df = 3)

Subscales χ2 P χ2 P χ2 P

1. Humanism/faith-hope/sensitivity 24.3 .001* 11.1 .049* 0.7 .881

2. Helping/trust 17.2 .016* 7.5 .189 2.2 .536
3. Expression of positive/negative feelings 23.0 .002* 12.0 .034* 1.3 .732
4. Teaching/learning 19.6 .007* 11.3 .046* 0.6 .891
5. Supportive/protective/corrective environment 21.8 .003* 7.0 .220 0.8 .852
6. Human needs assistance 20.6 .004* 5.9 .314 0.7 .875
7. Existential/phenomenological/spiritual forces 41.2 .000* 16.7 .005* 2.7 .445

Kruskall-Wallis one-way ANOVA.

df, Degrees of freedom.
*P <.05.

DISCUSSION tant because they also yield relatively high scores.

Results of this study show that the single most
important item perceived by subjects is “Know what
they are doing,” which supports results from 4 of the
5 previous studies that have used the CBA tool.10,13,14,16
These results also support several qualitative stud-
ies carried out in different settings.11,12,35-37 In all of
these studies, patients prioritized the clinical com-
petence of the nurse. These results support Watson’s
notion27,28 of caring as being manifested in actions
for and on behalf of patients, in which the result is
enrichment and protection of human dignity. In
accordance with these results, the subscale “human
needs assistance” ranked highest in this study, as in
several others.10,13,14,16 The “human needs assis-
tance” subscale contains 9 items, 5 of which belong
to the 10 most important nurse caring behaviors
found in this study. The prominence of assistance
with fulfilling human needs in the findings indicates
that the nurse reveals the moral stance of caring
through actions that are taken to respond to the
uniqueness of each individual, primarily the gratifi-
cation of unmet physical needs and the monitoring of
patients.27,28 Caring is therefore not something the
nurse reveals after finishing basic nursing care; rather,
in quality nursing practice, caring and competence
necessarily coexist.25
Although substantial differences in means exist
between the 10 most important nurse caring
behaviors (4.77-4.94) and the 10 least important
ones (3.15-4.09), it is not appropriate to assume
that the 10 least important items are unimportant
for the patients. These items certainly are impor-
Despite this, behaviors related to physical care and
monitoring of patients are prioritized, whereas
aspects related to emotional and spiritual needs
were seen as less important, as has been discussed
earlier.
Age correlated significantly with scores on all
subscales. The older the subjects, the more impor-
tant were the nurse caring behaviors. This finding
may be explained by the fact that with increasing
age, the need for health care increases. Elderly peo-
ple may generally feel vulnerable and thus may be
particularly sensitive to receiving attentive assis-
tance. For people who are at higher risk of getting
diseases it may be of particular importance to know
that their health care providers are professionals
who are competent and ready to take care of them.
Female participants scored significantly higher
than male participants in 5 of 7 subscales, which
accords with the notion that females have a better
conception of caring than males.39,40 Significant dif-
ferences were also found on 4 subscales with
regard to educational level, in which subjects with
lower education scored higher on the importance
of nurse caring behaviors. This may be linked to the
fact that females scored higher and they might, on
average, have received less education than males.
Results from this study, with regard to age, gender,
and educational level, differ from Cronin and Harri-
son’s study,10 in which no significant differences
were found. This difference may be explained by
the small sample size and relative homogeneity of
the sample in Cronin and Harrison’s study.

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Nurse caring behaviors
No significant differences were found among
subjects with regard to residence or the way in
which subjects perceived the seriousness of their
illness. This finding is different from the findings of
Huggins, Gandy, and Kohut,13 who demonstrated
that patients who were classified as “non-urgent”
had higher expectations than patients in the emer-
gent group. The results of this study indicate that,
irrespective of the seriousness of their illness,
patients feel the same need to be cared for. Pro-
fessionals should be aware of this need because
there is a tendency to minimize patients’ com-
plaints if they are not considered to be seriously ill.
Patients are, however, entitled to high quality care,
regardless of the professional’s perception of the
seriousness of their illness.
LIMITATIONS
This study was limited to patients who received
service at 1 department at 1 hospital. Furthermore,
the sample was a convenience sample; therefore
results cannot easily be generalized to the ED pop-
ulation at large. However, the results of this study
are in many ways similar to and, to a large extent,
supportive of the results of comparable studies
elsewhere. Participation is also limited to persons
who can read and write the Icelandic language and
are 18 years of age or older, thus excluding a con-
siderable portion of the patients (ie, children and
their parents). The most seriously ill patients are
likely to have been transferred to other units of the
hospital and were therefore excluded from the
study.
IMPLICATIONS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS
The results are useful in their own and in similar
settings because they can be used by staff nurses
to improve practice in various ways. They are also
significant to administrators in finding new avenues
of service that encourage exploration of what
patients consider important with regard to high-
quality care.
This study is conducted on the basis of theoretic
perspective, which defines caring as a moral stance
that presupposes clinical competence in nursing
practice. The results support this position and
should be used in a wider context to acknowledge
patients’ needs for caring and the understanding of
their expectations of the nursing profession. From
this perspective the results are valuable not only for
clinical practice but also for nursing education.
Time constraints and high workload have been
the main concerns of nurses with regard to insuffi-
74 www.mosby.com/hrtlng
Baldursdottir and Jonsdottir
cient caring for patients. These results do not sup-
port the belief that more time is necessarily need-
ed in order to care. However, a caring moment can
be created when the nurse is morally conscious
and authentically present with patients in fulfilling
their unmet needs, utilizing his or her knowledge
base and clinical competence.27,28
Further studies that use the CBA tool are recom-
mended to study how patients who stay for more
than 24 hours at the hospital perceive nurse caring
behaviors. Patients’ perceptions of nurse caring
behaviors in settings outside the ED would also be
useful, as would comparisons of the perceptions of
patients who have been in a hospital more than
once with patients who are experiencing their first
hospital stay.
Studying children as patients to find out which of
the nurse caring behaviors they and/or their par-
ents perceive as important could yield interesting
results and provide insight into whether children
have special needs with relation to caring. It could
also be interesting to combine a study like this with
a qualitative study in which interviews would give
insight into the various aspects of caring.
Nurses maintain that caring increases patients’
well-being.25,28 More general studies are needed to
explain the ways that caring affects patient’s out-
comes and to demonstrate the effectiveness of car-
ing on patient’s outcomes. Caring is an integral
component of nursing and studies on caring should
be at the forefront of future nursing research.
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1999;25:88-92.
3. Wolf ZR, Colahan M, Costello A, Warwick F, Ambrose MS, Giar-
dino ER. Relationship between nurse caring and patient satis-
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