Nurses Caring Behaviors towards Patients

Nursing: Nurses’ Caring Behaviors towards Patients Undergoing Chemotherapy in Greece

The justification for using a mixed-method approach for the selected article is to see whether the results from both quantitative (cross-sectional survey) and qualitative methods (focus group) complement each other. The participants’ point of view was to be observed, which was analyzed using two methods to ensure the findings if one method corroborated with another or not.

Since the purpose of the article is to explore the caring behaviors that nurses perceive are significant for cancer chemotherapy patients in Greece, the design in terms of the purpose of the research article is inclusive of both quantitative and qualitative methods. First, the results from the cross-sectional survey were used to check whether the second results occurred from focus groups.

Priority and sequence of methods are arranged, so that survey questions help gather demographic data such as gender, age, family status, educational background, and experience in nursing (Karlou et al., 2018). These factors supported understanding the prevalence of caring nature by the nurses towards their patients and their international presence for human care. Afterward, focus groups helped to measure those non-verbal cues that were not included in the surveys. The observation of nonverbal communication is an integral part of the study to endorse the data gathered from one method.

The first quantitative method, the cross-sectional survey, included 72 nurses from seven oncology wards in three cancer hospitals in Attica, Greece. Data gathering had been done with the help of the Greek version of CBI-24 for self-reporting standpoints about nurses’ caring. The nurses of the same demographic details were put in the same groups to compare their viewpoints easily. In the second qualitative method, six open-ended questions formulated from CBI-24 subscales were included and conducted in 90 to 120 minutes sessions within comfortable and quiet university nursing department’s surroundings. The analysis of the first method was done with the use of Statistical Package for Social Sciences along with U-test and T-test. Correlational analysis (Spearman p correlation) was also used for forming an association between demographic and personal characteristics of the sample. For focus groups, data analysis was done with content analysis with careful line-by-line reading, reproducing, and examining for patterns and themes.

The integration occurred to check how the nurses’ opinions have shaped, which were obtained from the survey, based on their professional knowledge, technical skills, and processes utilized in chemotherapy in cancer nursing, obtained via focus groups. Their experiences were to be checked for matching with their current opinions about caring for cancer patients. The integration took place with the demographic data and subsequent survey findings with the actual perceptions gained from focus groups with verbal and nonverbal cues and themes and patterns of care. The nurses in the selected sample were the ones engaged in the entire integration process along with the expert analysts.

The limitation of one method associated with other methods prevailed due to studying exposure and outcomes in the cross-sectional study that might not have given authentic results. It could have produced difficulties in making associations with nurses’ demographic data with their caring opinions. Moreover, the limitation of grouping the sample in homogenous sects and dynamics might have produced biased results that might not have truly supported the findings of the first method in mixed-methods research.