Patients' expectations of the functions of psychiatric and medical nurses

The purpose of the study was to determine if stated expectations of psychiatric and medical patients of nurses and nursing functions would be different. A questionnaire containing 70 items which measured patient expectation in two categories, emotional, supportive nursing functions and physical nursing functions was given to 60 psychiatric and 100 medical patients. The results demonstrated that psychiatric patients stated they expected significantly more emotional, supportive nursing functions than medical patients who stated they expected more physical nursing functions. The level of expectations of psychiatric and medical patients on specific emotional, supportive nursing functions and on specific physical nursing functions was also obtained. The mean and S. D. was computed for each item for the two groups of patients on the 70 items. Psychiatric and medical patients indicated a high level of expectancy on 15 items, 2 items were seldom expected 16 items demonstrated a similar level of expectation. Patients did not expect the nurse to shave them or care for their fingernails. All patients expected the nurse to treat them with self respect, to have an accepting attitude, and to establish satisfying communication. A correlation was run on the test scores of psychiatric and medical patients and on the number of admissions. The correlation obtained for psychiatric patients was not significant. The correlation coefficient for medical patients was - .26 (p = .5) which indicated that as the number of admission increased, medical patients expected more emotional, supportive nursing care functions. Psychiatric patients who had had more previous hospitalizations indicated that they had heard of the psychiatric nurse and felt they knew more of what she was supposed to do than first admission patients. Medical patients appeared to have more definite ideas about nurses and their functions than psychiatric patients.