Effectiveness of standard of care protocol on patient satisfaction and perceived staff caring.

BACKGROUND Nurse caring has been linked to many clinical outcomes, including patient satisfaction, well-being, and healing. In addition, it is valued by nursing staff and viewed as being essential to clinical practice. OBJECTIVES The purpose of this program evaluation study was to determine the difference in patient satisfaction with overall nursing care and perceived nurse caring when a nursing staff standard of care protocol, which included caring activities, was implemented within a nursing department at a National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center. METHODS A pre-experimental pre-/post-test design with comparison group and a post-test-only design were used to test the effect of the caring protocol on patient satisfaction with nursing care and perceived nurse caring. The study was conducted on seven inpatient units. FINDINGS Patient satisfaction with nursing care increased for some items, and perceived nurse caring was ranked highly immediately before discharge. Additional program evaluation studies involving a modified caring protocol may improve satisfaction with nursing care in other settings.