A comparison of the caring behaviours of nursing students and registered nurses: implications for nursing education.

Aims And Objectives: To compare the respective views of nursing students and registered nurses on caring behaviours.

Background: Research has indicated that nursing includes not only technical skills and professional knowledge but also the expression of care. In addition to nursing care, nurses demonstrate the acts of supporting, negotiating, reinforcing and transforming. However, little research simultaneously investigates the caring behaviours of nursing students and registered nurses.

Design: A cross-sectional study was conducted.

Methods: A total of 657 subjects participated in this study. The research tool was a self-administered structured questionnaire. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, one-way analysis of variance, t-test and chi-square test.

Results: The results showed that the most important caring behaviour is 'knowing the patient', while the least is 'advocating for the patient', which includes caring behaviours to respect the patient's and family's best interests, and voicing for them, possibly because this behaviour is more difficult for nurses to practice in the Taiwanese culture. Moreover, there was no significant difference in the caring behaviours between nursing students and registered nurses. However, age was found to be a significant difference in the caring behaviours of nursing students and registered nurses.

Conclusion: Caring behaviour is essential in clinical practice. Based on the results, this study suggested that role models should be provided to nursing students to develop proper caring behaviours. Nursing faculty can boost nursing students' interests in learning caring behaviours by incorporating diverse teaching strategies to enhance the effectiveness of caring behaviours.

Relevance To Clinical Practice: Much attention should be focused on education about awareness of caring behaviour for both nursing students and nursing staff. This study addressed that nursing administrators and faculty members should emphasise the importance of the essence of caring. Consequently, nursing curricula and training of nurses need to be concerned with implementing caring behaviour in clinical practice.