title: [How do patients assess caring they have experienced from nurses. Patients evaluate caring].
abstract: In this study, former patients who received a questionnaire by mail, were asked to evaluate Caring from their point of view. As a base, the 59-items measuring instrument "Humane Caring Scale HSC" by Töyry et al., which was translated into German by the author of this article and a team of experts, was used to collect data. In general, the patients (n = 178) feel they are respected, secure, treated friendly and with patience, pain is relieved, they can ask questions and receive answers in a language which they understand. On the other hand, patients cannot enough influence the planning of the care, they cannot always confide in the nurses or personnel, they experience the hospital activity as hectic, they feel nursing staff do not have sufficient time and there is not enough personnel. These results clearly show that nursing is not yet patient focused enough and that the patients have little possibility to influence the course of action. Should this situation be improved, a change of attitude is asked of individual members of the nursing staff as well as of the nursing management, but structures would also have to be adapted. The purpose of questioning patients is the development of quality. It is, therefore, important to ask for the significance of the results, and it has to be determined through which appropriate measures the quality of nursing can be improved and further developed. This measuring instrument has proved to be sound. A clear strong/weak profile could be presented. A final judgement of the validity and reliability of the instrument can, however, not be made today and should be subject to further studies.
authors.affiliation: Universität Maastricht, Fakultät der Gesundheitswissenschaften, Fachbereich Pflegewissenschaft, Zentrum für Entwicklung und Forschung in der Pflege (ZEFP), UniversitätsSpital Zürich. silvia.schmid@pfl.usz.ch
authors.forename: S S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Büchi
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D009732:Nursing Care / Q000458:organization & administration; D009741:Nursing Staff, Hospital / Q000600:supply & distribution; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013557:Switzerland