Adult sickle cell patients' perceptions of nurses' caring behaviors

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a life-long, acutely painful, chronic illness. This study was conducted to explore differences in perceptions of nurses' caring behaviors between adults with SCD and adults with general medical conditions and the differences in perceptions of nurses' caring behaviors between men with SCD and women with SCD. Watson's (1988) Theory of Human Caring provided the conceptual framework. In this descriptive, correlational design, convenience sampling was used to obtain 29 adults with SCD and 34 adults with other medical conditions. The mean age for adults with SCD was 35.8, and on average they reported four hospitalizations per year. The mean age for the general medical patients was 48.9, and they averaged two hospitalizations per year. Instruments used in this study were a demographic data form and the Caring Behavior Assessment, modified for use in this study. The instruments were distributed through support groups using the snowball technique. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and independent t-tests. Participants with SCD reported lower satisfaction with nurses' caring behaviors than those with other medical conditions (t = 2.19, p = .03). Women with SCD reported lower satisfaction with nurses' caring behaviors than men with SCD (t = 2.91, p = .01).