Critical care nurse's capacities to express a caring relationship with patients in teaching hospitals

Nurse's belief in his or her ability to express a caring orientation and to develop caring relationships with clients or patients is a core professional variable in the equation of providing high quality care. This variable can be predicted by assessing nurses Caring-Efficacy level. This study aimed to assess the caring efficacy level and verify any potential relationship between critical care nurse's professional characteristics and their Caring-Efficacy level in teaching hospitals. A descriptive correlational design was used, under which a purposive sample of 147 critical care nurse were recruited to join the study. Coates Caring-Efficacy Scale (CES) was used to achieve the study aims. A significant statistical difference at the p-value ≤ 0.05 level, in nurses Caring-Efficacy was verified among subjects’ educational attainment, gender, work shift, continuous education sessions, caring curriculum-based education, and caring actualization in academia and clinical setting. Despite the fact that the highest percentage of the study sample were classified under the category of highest caring efficacy indicating high caring competency, it is important to recognize that there is a significant percentage of the nurses with moderate and even low caring efficacy level. In a profession like nursing were caring is the essence of nurse-client therapeutic relationship, the maximum level of Caring-Efficacy should be the norm, particularly in critical care setting.