www.nmsjournal.com Correlation Between Nurses’ Caring Behaviors and Patients’ Satisfaction Ismail Azizi-Fini 1 , Masoumeh-Sadat Mousavi 2 , Atefeh Mazroui-Sabdani 2 , Mohsen Adib- Hajbaghery 1* 1 Trauma Nursing Research Center, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, IR Iran 2 Department of Medical-Surgical Nursing, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, IR Iran ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history: Received: 18 Jun 2012 Revised: 01 Jul 2012 Accepted: 15 Jul 2012 Keywords: Caring Patient Satisfaction Behaviors Article type: Original Article Please cite this paper as: Azizi-Fini I, Mousavi MS, Mazroui-Sabdani A, Adib-Hajbaghery M. Correlation Between Nurses’ Caring Behaviors and Patients’ Satis- faction. Nurs Midwifery Stud. 2012:1(1): 36-40. DOI: 10.5812/nms.7901 Implication for health policy/practice/research/medical education: Patient satisfaction is relevant to the nurses caring behaviors. Nurses and the hospital authorities are responsible for creating a caring environment and improving the nurses’ caring behavior to improve the patients’ satisfaction. Background: Nowadays, the patients’ satisfaction is used as a criterion to measure the hospitals’ service quality. However, there are controversial results about the aspect of caring behaviors which mostly affects the patients’ satisfaction. Objectives: The current study aimed to assess the relationship between caring behaviors and patients’ satisfaction. Patients and Methods: A descriptive correlation study was conducted on 250 randomly selected patients in Beheshti Hospital in Kashan, Iran. A questionnaire was used to gath- er the data. Degree of satisfaction was measured on a five-point scale using the patient satisfaction instrument, and caring behavior was measured on a six-point scale by caring behavior inventory. Results: A significant positive correlation was observed between caring behavior mean score and that of the patient satisfaction (P < 0.001, r = 0.565). The subscale of “knowl- edge and professional skills” of the caring behavior inventory obtained the highest and the subscale of “respectful deference to others” got the lowest mean scores. In the pa- tient satisfaction instrument, the two subscales of “technical - professional care” and “patient education” gained the highest and the lowest mean scores respectively. Conclusions: The caring behaviors of nurses and patient education can increase the pa- tient satisfaction. Published by Kowsar Corp, 2012. cc 3.0. * Corresponding author: Mohsen Adib-Hajbaghery, Trauma Nursing Research Center, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, IR Iran. Tel: +98-3615550021, Fax: +98-3615556633, E-mail: adibhajbagheri_m@kaums.ac.ir DOI: 10.5812/nms.7901 © 2012 Kashan University of Medical Sciences; Published by Kowsar Corp. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which per- mits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Nurs Midwifery Stud.2012:1(1);36-40. DOI: 10.5812/nms.7901 1. Background Caring is the essence of nursing and is the basic factor that distinguishes between nurses and other health pro- fessions (1, 2). The concept of caring in nursing studies has been defined in different ways. Watson argues, “Car- ing includes knowledge, performance and the results” (3). Morse et al. represented definitions of caring accord- ing to the five major conceptualizations of caring: caring as a human trait; caring as a moral imperative; caring as an affect; caring as an interpersonal interaction; and caring as an intervention (4). Caring is an interpersonal process that is characterized by expert nursing, interper- sonal sensitivity and intimate relationships (5). It is the most important and critical factor in enhancing the hu- man life (6) and is considered as the key role in the nurs- ing team (7, 8). Caring includes behaviors such as respect for the others, assurance of humanistic presence, posi-