Do Nurses Know What Patients Think is Important in Nursing Care?

In order for a nurse to provide quality care, she or he must know what patients expect from the nurse. Previous research into nurses' insight into patients' expectations of care have been based on idiosyncratic instruments or instruments that measure the perspective of the provider, not the patient. Using the 90 items from the Patient's Perception of Quality Scale-Acute Care Version, an instrument developed from qualitative interviews of patients, 448 patients and 350 nurses from the medical surgical units in seven hospitals ranked the items, patients from their perspective and nurses as they perceived patients would rank them. While the rank order of items was similar across patients and nurses, nurses consistently underestimated the extent to which patients valued most aspects of good nursing care.