title: Quality of nursing care in psychiatric wards of university hospitals in northwest of iran from the perceptions of nurses.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Nursing care is considered as an essential component of health services. Patients' health improvement depends upon the quality of nursing care. As an important principle, perceptions of nurses as well as their active participation in decision-makings has an important role in the quality of services. This study aimed to determine the percep-tion of nurses toward the quality of nursing care in psychiatric wards.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this descriptive study, we used census sampling. Seventy-six nurses employed at psychiatric wards of university hospitals in Northwest of Iran participated in this study. Quality Patient Care Scale (QUALPAC) was used to collect data. The score of each aspect and total scores were categorized as desirable, partly desirable and undesirable. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Findings showed that 60.5% of nurses perceived the quality of nursing care as desirable, while 65.8% and 53.9% reported the quality of physical and communicational aspects of care as desirable. Moreover, 51.3% of nurses considered the quality of care in psychosocial aspect as partly desirable.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Although research findings indicated the desirability of care quality from the perceptions of most nurses, designing and applying educational programs and continuous evaluation are necessary to improve nursing care quality especially in psychosocial aspects in these centers.
authors.affiliation: PhD, Assistant Professor, Departement of Nursing, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
authors.forename: Hossein
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ebrahimi
authors.affiliation: MSc, Instructor, Departement of Nursing, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
authors.forename: Hossein
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Namdar
authors.affiliation: MSc, Postgraduate Student, Departement of Nursing, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
authors.forename: Maryam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vahidi
keywords: Nurse; Perception; Psychiatric wards; Quality of nursing care