From patient satisfaction to patient experience: A call to action for nursing in China

This commentary presents a preliminary overview of patient experience studies to advocate for advancing research and practice focusing on patient experience in nursing in China.

There is a growing worldwide focus on evaluation of patient experience. Increasing numbers of national patient experience surveys have been conducted in China; however, nursing seems to be overlooked in this growing trend.

A systematic search and review of studies reporting patient experience in nursing was conducted with China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) from inception through 11 November 2019.

Inappropriate use and expression of patient experience led to confusion and misunderstandings. High-quality studies specifically for patient experience was lacking, especially those adopting quantitative and mixed methods designs. Tools with adequate input from nursing were scant.

Patient experience studies in nursing are still nascent in China in terms of quantity, quality and diversity.

The concept of patient experience should be clearly defined through performing a systematic integrative review. Well-conducted qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods studies are especially needed. Nursing should be more involved in development of tool for measuring patient experience, and an instrument with a clear construct definition, systematically developed and psychometrically validated, constructed by nursing researchers will be valuable.