PREDICTORS OF NURSING CARE BEHAVIORS IN CRITICAL CARE UNITS

Taking care of patients is a moral necessity. Caring behaviors includes actions and behaviors provided by nurses as physical, emotional, social, and spiritual & psychosocial cares for patients. In fact, it is assumed that feeling cared by patients is due to caring behaviors.

Determining predictors of nursing care behaviors in critical care units.

The present study is a descriptive-analytical study in which all of 350nurses who were working in Icu′s of Urmia city selected as sample. The questionnaire were consists of 3 parts including Demographic characteristics, Larsson Care Behavior Questionnaire (Q-Care) and Determinants Questionnaire of Care Behavior (DNCB). Data were analyzed by using Spss20 software at significance level of p<0/05.

From ICU nurses view of point, the most important dimensions of care behaviors were” accessibility”, “explains”, “monitors”. Based on Regression analysis, predictors of “accessibility” were sense of job security, demand of the patient or system, predictors of “explain” were age of the nurse, sense of responsibility, gender of the patient and predictors of “monitors” were job experience, believe in the need to deliver quality care, feeling of being a valuable employee in the system, time allocated to direct care.

The results of this research might be applied at different levels of nursing education and management. In order to improve quality of care, nursing managers and authorities just need to focus on predictors of each care dimension. This finally, of course decrease their expenditure and the time allocated for quality improvement projects.