Empowering Nurses to Provide Humanized Care in Canadian Hospital Care Units: A Qualitative Study

Previous studies have reported a conflict between nurses' motivation to provide humanized care and practical requirements impeding them from doing so. This exploratory descriptive qualitative study aimed to explore nurses' perspectives on humanized care, the challenges they face, and, most importantly, their recommendations to overcome these barriers. Semistructured individual interviews were conducted with 17 auxiliary and registered nurses working in various health care units in a Canadian hospital. Participants demonstrated a good understanding of what humanized care covers and entails. They also described it as the very core of their profession and main source of job satisfaction. However, nurses reported that they are confronted with organizational barriers, mainly a lack of staff, the burden of administrative tasks, unsuitable physical environments or equipment, and little managerial support. Nurses stressed the need for a cultural change in managerial practices in order to be able to improve their provision of humanized care. Based on the findings, 4 structuring recommendations were identified: adopting an institutional policy promoting the implementation of humanized care, incorporating humanized care in nurses' tasks and procedures, improving participatory management, and ensuring adequate staffing.