ORIGINAL RESEARCH Promoting patient care: work engagement as a mediator between ward service climate and patient-centred care Nasra Abdelhadi & Anat Drach-Zahavy Accepted for publication 13 August 2011 Correspondence to A. Drach-Zahavy: e-mail: anatdz@research.haifa.ac.il Nasra Abdelhadi MA RN Student Faculty of Health and Welfare, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa, Israel Anat Drach-Zahavy PhD Professor The Department of Nursing, Faculty of Health and Welfare, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa, Israel ABDELHADI N. & DRACH-ZAHAVY A. (2011) ABDELHADI N. & DRACH-ZAHAVY A. (2011) Promoting patient care: work engagement as a mediator between ward service climate and patient-centred care. Journal of Advanced Nursing 00(0), 000–000. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2648. 2011.05834.x Abstract Aims. To test a model that suggests the ward’s climate of service facilitates nurses’ patient-centred care behaviours through its effect on nurses’ work engagement. Background. Organizational efforts to promote patient-centred care focused on interventions aimed to improve nurses’ communication skills, or to improve patient’s participation in the decision-making process. These interventions have been only partially successful, as they do not take the ward context into account; so caring professionals who attend workshops can rarely apply their newly acquired skills due to the daily pressures of the ward. Method. A nested cross-sectional research design (nursing staff within wards) was adopted, with three measures of the care behaviour of nurses. Data were collected in 2009, from 158 nurses working in 40 wards of retirement homes in northern Israel. Nurses’ work engagement, ward’s climate for service and control variables were measured via validated questionnaires. Patient-centred care behaviours were assessed by structured observations. Results. The findings supported our model: service climate proved a link to nurses’ work engagement and patient-centred care behaviours. Nurses’ work engagement mediated the service-climate patient-centred care behaviours. Conclusion. The research is pioneering in demonstrating a close relation between ward service climate and patient-centred care. In practice, to improve patient-cen- tred care managers should invest in facilitating ward service climate, highlighting the importance of service to the organization through appropriate rewards, guid- ance and administrative practices. Keywords: patient-centred care, service climate, work engagement Introduction Patient-centred care (PCC) encourages nurses to understand the disease and the patient when developing a health plan and/or caring for patients. In 2001, the United States Institute of Medicine endorsed PCC as a central component of high- quality health care (The Committee on Quality of Health Care in America, 2001). Additional key organizations worldwide (ACGME 2005; ABMS 2005) identified it as an important competency necessary for healthcare professionals. Ó 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 1 JAN JOURNAL OF ADVANCED NURSING