Quality of Nursing Care in Psychiatric Wards of University Hospitals in Northwest of Iran from the Perceptions of Nurses

Nursing care is considered as an essential component of health services.patients’ health improvement depends upon the quality of nursing care. as an importantprinciple, perceptions of nurses as well as their active participation in decision-makingshas an important role in the quality of services. this study aimed to determine the perception of nurses toward the quality of nursing care in psychiatric wards. methods: in thisdescriptive study, we used census sampling. seventy-six nurses employed at psychiatricwards of university hospitals in northwest of iran participated in this study. quality patientcare scale (qualpac) was used to collect data. the score of each aspect and total scoreswere categorized as desirable, partly desirable and undesirable. the collected data wereanalyzed using descriptive statistics. results: findings showed that 60.5% of nurses perceived the quality of nursing care as desirable, while 65.8% and 53.9% reported the qualityof physical and communicational aspects of care as desirable. moreover, 51.3% of nursesconsidered the quality of care in psychosocial aspect as partly desirable. conclusion: although research findings indicated the desirability of care quality from the perceptions ofmost nurses, designing and applying educational programs and continuous evaluation arenecessary to improve nursing care quality especially in psychosocial aspects in these centers.