Nurses' reflections on good nurse traits: Implications for improving care quality.

Area of Science:

• Nursing
• Healthcare Professionalism
• Qualitative Research

Background:

• Effective nursing care fosters patient well-being.
• Nurses' inherent traits, not didactic teaching, define
• good
• nursing.
• Further study on nurses' self-awareness of role traits is needed.

Purpose of the Study:

• Develop a strategy for nurses to explore the importance of good nurse traits.
• Investigate discrepancies between nurses' perceived ideal and actual importance of these traits.

Main Methods:

• Mixed-method study using good nurse trait card play and Q-sort grids.
• Nurses reflected on clinical practice, rating trait importance (ideal vs. actual).
• Quantitative analysis of trait discrepancies and qualitative analysis of clinical experiences.

Main Results:

• Trait card play facilitated discussion on quality nursing care experiences.
• Nurses' perceived discrepancies fell into over-performed, least discrepant, and under-performed categories.
• "Obedience" was the most over-performed trait; patient-valued traits were under-performed.

Conclusions:

• A strategy for eliciting nurses' self-dialogue on role traits was developed.
• Evidence of incongruity between perceived ideal and actual trait importance was found.
• "Obedience" as an over-performed trait warrants further investigation.