Components and Indicators of Humanistic Care Characteristics of Nursing Students under Praboromarajchanok Institute, Thailand Ministry of Public Health

Abstract

This exploratory factor analysis aimed to determine components and indicators of humanistic care characteristics among nursing students. Our study subjects included five hundred fourth-year nursing students who were studying at nursing colleges of Ministry of Public Health in the third semester of the 2016 academic year. We deployed a stratified sampling technique. To extract factors, we used both exploratory factor analysis and principal components analysis with orthogonal rotation by Varimax method. Results showed that humanistic care characteristics of nursing students at PI had 4 components representing 15 indicators from the questionnaire. The four components included: 1) appreciation and pride (6 indicators), 2) ashamed about lying to their patients (3 indicators), 3) holistic care and empathy (3 indicators) 4) understanding the community and accepting one's own mistakes (3 indicators). Based on these findings, we suggest that executive management at PI and affiliated colleges should strengthen nursing training for all four components and 15 indicators by incorporating these components into policies and by explicitly defining them in PI’s strategic plan. At the college level, lecturers should integrate these components with theoretical teaching, hands-on practice, and curriculum enrichment activities to promote concrete and sustainable humanistic care in nursing students.