Abstract
BACKGROUND: Patient advocacy, which is an integral part of patient care processes, envisages the defense of patients on issues such as patient rights and ethical values and is a concept directly related to the core values of the nursing profession. It is thought that nurses' patient advocacy behaviors are linked to their perceptions of professional values. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the effect of nurses' patient advocacy behaviors on professional values. METHODS: The study is descriptive, correlational, and cross-sectional. It was conducted with 527 nurses working in a city hospital in Istanbul between August and September 2023. Data were collected using the Information Form, Patient Advocacy Scale for Nurses, and Professional Values Scale. Descriptive tests, correlation analysis, and simple linear regression analysis were used to analyze the data. A STROBE checklist was used to report the study. RESULTS: Nurses' Patient Advocacy Behaviors score was 163.84 (SD = 22.88) and the Professional Values score was 110.26 (SD = 16.29). The study determined that there was a significant, positive, and moderate relationship between the total scores of patient advocacy behaviors and the perception of nurses' professional values (r = 0.628). It was found that female nurses had more professional values than male nurses, nurse managers had more professional values than other nurses, and day shift nurses had more professional values than night shift nurses (p > 0.05). It was determined that the model created for the perception of professional values was significant and patient advocacy behaviors explained 51.4% of the variance of the perception of professional values. CONCLUSION: It was found that there was a moderate and positive relationship between patient advocacy behaviors and professional value perceptions of nurses. According to this result, it is recommended that more training on patient advocacy and professional values be included in the nursing education curriculum, the quality of the training should be improved, more studies should be conducted on these issues, and policymakers and hospital administrators should encourage nurses.