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Background and Aim of the Work: Structured nursing care planning, patients' satisfaction with care, nurses' job satisfaction, and the characteristics of the work environment may influence each other and impact on the quality of hospital care. This study aimed at investigating the differences in nurses' perception of the work environment and patients' satisfaction with care, between two groups of hospital wards that used NANDA-I, NIC, and NOC taxonomies or not in the daily practice., Methods: A pilot cross-sectional study was conducted involving nurses employed in eight wards of a teaching hospital in central Italy and patients hospitalized in these wards. The 'Nursing Work Index Revised' and the 'Patient Satisfaction Scale' were used to investigate nurses' perception of the work environment and patients' satisfaction with care, respectively., Results: Significant better perceptions of both the constructs were highlighted in those wards that used nursing taxonomies., Conclusions: The application of a healthcare model based on the nursing process methodology should be empowered in the hospital settings, since it can influence the quality of the environment and patients' satisfaction with care.

Background: In daily clinical practice, healthcare workers face end-of-life issues, such as futility, which is generally defined as the provision of treatments that do not produce any meaningful benefit for patients., Study Design: To investigate the end-of-life issues according to Italian nurses' and physicians' opinions and to detect any differences between them, a secondary analysis of existing data from a cross-sectional study was conducted., Methods: A validated questionnaire was used involving 351 nurses and 128 physicians from four hospitals in Central Italy., Results: Regarding the definition of futility, nurses mainly focused on agony, suffering, and risks, while physicians paid more attention to the hope of healing. Nevertheless, both were distressed by different aspects of the treatments; in particular, nurses by the 'invasiveness of the treatments' and physicians by the 'over-medicalization of death'. Instead, nurses and physicians similarly recognized patients' right to seek to anticipate the end of life when they are terminally-ill and to express freely their desire not to be revived., Conclusions: The description of experiences and opinions of health professionals could represent a valid basis to develop a 'regulatory system' aimed to guide and support daily clinical and nursing activities.

Background and Aim: The public opinion about the nursing profession can influence health service users, the work performance of nurses, health policies, and the choice to become a nurse. The aim of this study was to investigate the perception of nursing in modern society., Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with a sample of 398 participants belonging to four population groups: Very Important Persons (VIPs), general population, upper-school students, and nursing students. This phenomenon was assessed through the Nursing Attitude Questionnaire (NAQ) and several additional items., Results: The results highlighted that general population and nursing students showed a significantly better image of nurses than did VIPs and upper-school students., Conclusions: Overall, the sample acknowledged nurses fundamental connotations and functions, although secondary school students poorly recognized nurses' professional autonomy, and VIPs' judgements seemed to be more sensitive to the image of nurses given by mass media.

Background: It has been shown that empathy strengthens the relationship between patients and health professionals and also improves patient and health professional satisfaction, which helps promote the best clinical outcomes. Empathy is considered an essential prerequisite for a nurse to effectively care for a patient and for a holistic understanding of a patient's perspective in a student population., Objectives: The main aim was to compare empathy levels between health professional students attending different university courses., Design: A comparative study with a cross-sectional approach was conducted in two successive academic year cohorts of 1st year health professional students at a public Italian university., Participants and Methods: A sample of 1st year health professional students at a public Italian university was investigated using the Jefferson Scale of Empathy Health Professional Students version (JSE-HPS)., Results: Overall, 502 health professional students were included in the study. The students in nursing showed significantly higher empathy levels than the students in other health professions. Furthermore, the female students were found to exhibit significantly more overall empathy than the male students were., Conclusions: The undergraduate nursing students showed a significantly higher mean score of empathy measured by the Jefferson Scale of Empathy Health Professional Students version (JSE-HPS) than the students attending other health undergraduate courses. This could mean that a particular aptitude in establishing a help-relationship with other people exists among the students that choose to become a nurse., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)