Cancer patients' demographic characteristics and ratings of patient-centered nursing care.

Purpose: To examine relationships between patients' demographic characteristics and patients' reports of patient-centered care.

Design: Secondary analysis of data (N = 423) from a study in the northeastern United States focused on the psychometric properties of the Oncology Patients' Perceptions of the Quality of Nursing Care Scale (OPPQNCS).

Methods: The quality of four interpersonal nursing interventions, representing patient-centered nursing care, was measured with the OPPQNCS subscales. Patients' characteristics included race (White or non-White), sex, age, education, income, and hospitalization for cancer. Four separate ordinary least squares regression models were constructed.

Findings: Hospitalization was inversely related to intervention quality in each model. Income was the only statistically significant characteristic for nonhospitalized patients, and only in the coordination model. For hospitalized patients, education was statistically significant in the coordination model, and income in the proficiency model. An interaction term for education and income was statistically significant in the responsiveness model, and a term for gender and education in the individualization model.

Conclusions: Hospitalized patients' exposure to nursing care may indicate a wider range of care quality than for nonhospitalized patients, possibly accounting for the inverse relationship between hospitalization and patient-centered care. Groups identified at risk for lower quality care--minorities, women, elders, and people in low-income groups--did not report a lower level of patient-centered nursing care. Nurses' contributions to patient-centered care and care equity are important components of care quality, particularly for hospitalized cancer patients.