In spite of the nurses' and patients' belief in the importance of communication, in practice each party's role in communication leaves much to be desired. This is because of some structural and socio-cultural factors that hinder effective communication. More attention should be paid by policy makers to remove factors that hinder the nurse-patient communication process.

Introduction: Recognition the nurses’ communicative roles can influence quality of patient’s care. Therefore, this study was aimed to explore nurse’s role in nurse-patient relations. Methods: This study was a qualitative research in which collected data was analyzed by content analysis method. The participants were 23 nurses, patients and their families in medical and surgical wards of a referral hospital in Tehran, Iran. Data were collected by semi-structured interview and observation. Results: Data analysis was led to the emergence of a main conceptual category: The patient's need-based communication. This category was derived from two categories: 1) Identifying the patient’s needs; and 2) Communicative behavior in the face of the patient’s needs. "Identifying the patient’s needs" was related to "type of the patient’s problem", "patients’ inquiring about their health status" and "monitoring the patient’s health status". "Communicative behavior in the face of the patient’s needs" was composed of four subcategories: "caring attention", "informal education of the patient", "inducing calmness to the patient", and "obtaining the trust of the patient". Conclusion: The nurse’s role in relationship with patients is designed according to patients’ needs. Therefore, if the patients’ needs in clinical settings are defined and clarified appropriately, the nurse-patient relations will be enhanced and thereby the quality of care will be improved.

Background:Although using the nursing process improves nursing care quality, few studies have evaluated nursing performance in accordance with nursing process steps either nationally or internationally.Objectives:This study aimed to audit nursing care based on a nursing process model.Patients and Methods:This was a cross-sectional descriptive study in which a nursing audit checklist was designed and validated for assessing nurses’ compliance with nursing process. A total of 300 nurses from various clinical settings of Tehran university of medical sciences were selected. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics, including frequencies, Pearson correlation coefficient and independent samples t-tests.Results:The compliance rate of nursing process indicators was 79.71 ± 0.87. Mean compliance scores did not significantly differ by education level and gender. However, overall compliance scores were correlated with nurses’ age (r = 0.26, P = 0.001) and work experience (r = 0.273, P = 0.001).Conclusions:Nursing process indicators can be used to audit nursing care. Such audits can be used as quality assurance tools.

According to this study, the CTA model is an effective method for developing clinical skills in nursing students in Iran as a developing country. Therefore, application of the method is recommended in clinical nursing education systems of such countries.