Comparison of the importance of caring behaviours as perceived by nurses and patients

Caring is the essence of nursing and is a universal phenomenon, not only essential for effective therapy also for self actualization and for human survival. Since research and information about caring has implications for improving maintenance of the quality of caring performance, this study was inducted to compare the importance of caring behaviours in professional nurses and in- patients in medical & surgical wards. Fifty patients and equal number of nurses were interviewed. Q sort methodology as used for data collection. The statistical test used to analyse the data was man Whitney U test. The results showed that the highest mean rank( 39/85 & 5/43) to behaviour nurse asks the provides treatment order on time; and the lowest mea rank( 10/13& 5/43) to behaviour" nurse asks the patients what name she/ he prefers to be called" by patients and nurses respectively. In the least important ten items, five were common to both groups and in the most important ten items,five were common to both groups. Comparison of caring  behaviours showed significant differences between two groups in the rating of 15 of 50 caring behaviours. Agreement was shown between patients and nurses on more than 2/3 behaviours and disagreement was shown on less than 1/3 behaviours.