Although the concept of caring is widely accepted as an essential component of nursing, little is known about the behaviors that communicate caring, especially from the family's perspective. Such practical attention to the concept of caring in critical care is crucial to the therapeutic nurse-family relationship. The purpose of this study was to design and test an instrument to measure the perceptions of family members and nurses about the relative importance of 50 nurse-caring behaviors towards family members in critical care. / The Family Care-Q Instrument (FCQI) was originally based on the Care-Q Caring Assessment Instrument designed by Larson (1981). Items not relevant to family nursing in critical care were eliminated from Larson's instrument and new ones were formulated. The newly designed instrument identifies two categories of nurse-caring behaviors, expressive and instrumental, which were further delineated into six sub-categories based on Watson's Theory of Caring and the literature on caring behaviors. The FCQI was translated into French. Evidence of internal consistency, stability and validity was established partially during the development and testing of the FCQI. / A pilot study using the instrument was conducted. Perceptions of 20 family members and 38 critical care nurses of most and least important nurse-caring behaviors towards family members in critical care were assessed. Similarities and differences in perceptions were identified between nurses and family members in specific behaviors and in the most and least important behaviors. Overall, critical care nurses ranked the category of instrumental caring behaviors as most important, while family members identified the expressive category as most important.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.56979 |
| Date | January 1992 |
| Creators | Gagnon, Lucie |
| Contributors | Gooding, Barbara Ann (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (School of Nursing.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001320116, proquestno: AAIMM87720, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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