Abstract
BACKGROUND: A caring education program is proven effective in improving nurses' behavior in several countries. This study aimed to assess the effect of the Caring-Based Training Program (CBTP) on nurses' caring behaviors of Indonesian nurses as perceived by patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This non-equivalent control group post-test-only design was conducted on 74 patients from a public hospital in Malang district, Indonesia, in 2019. The patients who only met the inclusion criteria were recruited through convenience sampling. The Caring Behaviors Inventory-24 (CBI-24) items were utilized to measure nurses' caring behaviors as perceived by patients. Data were analyzed using frequency, mean, standard deviation, t-test, and ANOVA test at 0.05 levels of significance. RESULTS: The overall mean score of CBI-24 for the experimental group was higher than the control group (5.48 and 5.04, respectively). According to the patient's perception, these findings indicated that the caring behavior of nurses in the experimental group was better than that in the control group. The independent t-test showed a significant difference in the nurses' caring behaviors between the experimental and control groups (p-value = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The study demonstrated that a CBTP could improve nurses' caring behaviors. Therefore, the developed program is essential and required by Indonesian nurses to increase their caring behaviors.