Client Perceptions of Nursing Practice

Abstract

Nursing practice may be defined according to standards developed by the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) through a process of professional nursing consensus (CNA, 1980). The modern-day tennet of consumer satisfaction has encouraged nurses and the institutions in which they work to emphasise client satisfaction in order to ensure long-term professional and institutional survival. This has prompted researchers to solicit information from clients on their perception of hospitals (Ben-Sira, 1983; Haxhe, Zumofen, De Coninck, et al., 1981) and nursing practice (Altschul, 1983; Mangen & Griffith, 1982; Weiss & Davis, 1983) as part of nursing quality assurance programmes. It has even been suggested that nursing practice be divided into two distinct roles; institutional "hostess" and "task worker" (Bokma & Timmer, 1983). A client focus is presented in this paper, an investigation of the ways in which clients describe and evaluate nursing practice. Once the features or "dimensions" of client perceptions are known, nurses can take full advantage of this information to deliver appropriate service.