Effect of Nurse’s Characteristics on Their Willingness to Involve Patients in the Care Process in Hospitals in Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Introduction: Patient involvement in the care process is a widespread concept, which is considered an important issue to improve the quality of healthcare. This study aimed at assessing the effect of nurses’ characteristics on their willingness to involve patients in the care process in hospitals in Tehran, Iran. Materials and Methods: This study utilized the patient participation culture tool for healthcare workers to measure patient participation behavior. The cross-sectional data were collected from randomly selected nurses who were working in 11 hospitals affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Furthermore, the data were analyzed using a linear mixed model to analyze the differences among the nurses’ characteristics. Moreover, the data were adjusted by the random effects of differences between hospitals and wards. A P-value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: In total, 220 nurses from 18 wards participated in this study. The results showed that male nurses had a higher tendency to answer challenging questions (β=1.4; P=0.04), and younger nurses had significantly lower perceptions on coping with notifying questions asked by the patients (β=-1.7; P=0.02). In addition, nurses with Bachelor's degrees felt more support (β=2.8; P=0.02) and were more engaged in information sharing and dialogue (β=5.0; P=0.03). Furthermore, the full-time employed nurses perceived a lower lack of time (β=-1.2; P=0.002), compared to part-time peers. Conclusion: The findings indicate that the features and characteristics of the nurses might have an essential influence on patient involvement. Therefore, attention must be paid to these factors to overcome problems and obstacles that are encountered on the way of achieving effective patient involvement.