Caring and uncaring encounters in nursing in an emergency department

Caring is a core characteristic of nursing. Nurses' caring behaviour has been explored in several studies. When caring for trauma patients, the most important caring behaviour must be the procedures associated with lifesaving. However, it is important not to forget the patient's psychological needs.

The aim of this study was to highlight encounters between injured patients and nurses in the trauma team and to explore whether the theory of caring and uncaring encounters in nursing and health care is applicable in emergency care.

Data were collected by videotaping caring episodes between slightly injured patients and nurses in the trauma team. Five episodes involving 10 nurses were studied. The analysis was carried out in four steps. First the videotapes were studied several times and then transcribed into narratives, which were reduced into courses of events. These were subsequently classified according to aspects of caring and uncaring.

The nurses' verbal and non-verbal communication was poor, and they adopted a wait-and-see policy. A new uncaring aspect, instrumental behaviour, emerged from this poor communication. One of the caring aspects, being dedicated and having courage to be appropriately involved, could not be identified. Most encounters included several aspects of caring and uncaring, but the uncaring aspects predominated. The dominance of uncaring aspects indicates a lack of affective caring behaviour.

The result showed that the theory is partly applicable in emergency care. A new aspect, instrumental behaviour emerged. The nurses' behaviour in the five episodes was labelled as uncaring. Authentic nurse-patient encounters are essential in nursing.

The importance of meeting patients' psychological needs and nurses' affective caring behaviour should be emphasized in trauma care, trauma courses and nursing education. It is necessary to measure the caring behaviour of trauma nurses.