Nurse caring behaviours

The purpose of this research paper is to examine caring behaviours and how they relate to nurses practice from the psychiatric and general nurses' views. Whether this caring is influenced by the nurses' age, gender or qualification is also examined. The convenience sample used were nurses (n = 118) of all grades and experience in a general hospital and in a psychiatric hospital. The Care-Q instrument was used. The response rate was 66%. Statistical analysis included rankings of sub-scale and individual items and the chi-square test of association. The results show that nurses ranked physically based caring behaviours higher than affective behaviours. They emphasized monitoring and comforting behaviours but paid less attention to anticipatory behaviours. Gender appeared to have the greatest influence on what caring behaviours were valued. Male nurses were less likely than female nurses to be accessible, forming trusting relationships or performing comforting behaviours. The results challenge both nurses and nurse educators to examine caring behaviours in nursing practice.