The customer is always right: patients' perceptions of psychiatric nursing actions

In this age of consumerism, consideration should be given to patients' perceptions of interactions with the health care provider as a factor in assessing the quality of care provided. This article describes a study of 100 psychiatric inpatients in a large urban medical center who evaluated 50 commonly used psychiatric nursing actions. Significant differences were found between the general psychiatric patient population and the substance abuse population in perception of helpfulness and frequency of performance with 7 of the 50 nursing actions. As the consumer's perception of the effectiveness of nursing actions is determined, emphasis can be given to those interventions when planning patient care.