Ensuring the quality of patient care is pivotal to the mission of healthcare, and nursing services are driven by the provision of patient care (Sar[latin dotless i]kose & Goktepe, 2022). The care process encompasses the technical competence of the provider and the interpersonal or humanistic aspects of the patient-provider relationship (Campbell et al., 2000; Donabedian, 1988; Mikkonen et al., 2023). Technical competence involves knowledge, skills, and judgment and is, in essence, the science of healthcare (Wei, 2022). The humanistic dimension of care is the art of care, emphasizing integrity and compassion on the part of caregivers and mutual respect between nurses and patients that ensures the dignity of both parties (Wilson et al., 2021).
In this issue of The Journal of Nursing Research, our authors offer important evidence with respect to eight issues in patient care. These issues include "summarizing the reflections of male nurses on their experiences while volunteering for frontline COVID-19 duty" ; "analyzing the testimonies of people regarding their journeys from drug addiction to drug withdrawal"; "exploring the frailty experiences of older adults and the management strategies they use to recover from frailty"; "exploring the perspectives, experiences, and perceptions of patient and visitor violence"; "testing work engagement affected by professional nursing practice environment, self-efficacy, and achievement motivation"; "assessing sleep quality in liver transplant recipients and associated factors"; "examining the effect of the Burns Wean Assessment Program e-learning materials on ventilator withdrawal"; and "examining the effects of an educational intervention on psychological health, health-promoting behaviors, and quality of life in coronary heart disease patients with type D personality".
These articles provide substantive, objective data related patient care and nursing services. The nursing profession can make distinctive, even indispensable, contributions to patient health outcomes. However, successful quality assurance must be rooted in reliable and valid information regarding nursing practice efficacy (Hung, 2020). Empirical evidence must be available to support the claim that quality of care is affected advantageously by the input of specific nursing interventions. Therefore, the use of blunt, general instruments originally developed for use in other disciplines should be avoided because they pose serious barriers to measuring nursing's unique contributions and outcomes (Hung, 2020). Accordingly, the science of nursing must develop useful practice tools that are specific and sensitive to both the nursing process and the desired outcomes of nursing care.
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