Caring behaviours directly and indirectly affect nursing students' critical thinking

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Cognitive Psychology
• Healthcare Professional Development

Background:

• Critical thinking is essential for effective nursing practice.
• Caring behaviours and self-reflection are recognized as important factors influencing professional development.
• Understanding the interplay between these elements is crucial for optimizing nursing education.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the direct effect of caring behaviours on critical thinking.
• To examine the mediating role of self-reflection in the caring behaviours-critical thinking relationship.
• To investigate whether caring behaviours moderate the association between self-reflection and critical thinking.

Main Methods:

• A descriptive, correlational, cross-sectional study design was employed.
• 293 fifth-year nursing students in southern Taiwan participated.
• Data were collected using validated instruments for critical thinking, caring behaviours, and self-reflection, analyzed via structural equation modeling.

Main Results:

• Caring behaviours significantly and positively influenced both critical thinking (β = 0.56) and self-reflection (β = 0.54).
• Self-reflection positively impacted critical thinking (β = 0.34).
• Self-reflection mediated the relationship between caring behaviours and critical thinking; no moderation effect was found.

Conclusions:

• Caring behaviours have a direct positive impact on self-reflection and critical thinking.
• Caring behaviours indirectly enhance critical thinking through the mediating mechanism of self-reflection.
• These findings underscore the importance of fostering caring behaviours in nursing education to cultivate critical thinking skills.