Relationship between care dependency, adverse events, trust in nurses and satisfaction with care: The mediating role of patient‐reported missed care

AIM: The aim of the study was to investigate the mediating effect of patient-reported missed care in the relationship between care dependency, adverse events, trust in nurses and satisfaction with nursing care. DESIGN: A cross-sectional and correlational study. METHODS: A total of 374 patients were recruited from the medical and surgical inpatient units of two public university hospitals in Türkiye using a convenience sampling method from May to August 2022. The data were collected using the Care Dependency Scale, MISSCARE Survey-Patient, Trust in Nurses Scale and Newcastle Satisfaction with Nursing Care Scale. The relationships between the variables were analysed using a sequential mediation model (Model 6) in Hayes' PROCESS macro. RESULTS: Care dependency was found to have a significant negative effect on misscare-communication; however, it had no significant effect on misscare-basic care. Misscare-communication had a significant positive effect on the experience of adverse events, while misscare-basic care had no significant effect. Misscare-communication and basic care had a significant negative effect on trust in nurses and satisfaction with nursing care. Misscare-communication was found to have a partial mediating effect on the relationship between care dependency and experiencing adverse events, trust in nurses and satisfaction with nursing care. CONCLUSION: The results emphasize the importance of misscare-basic care, communication and patients' care dependency in improving patient outcomes such as experiencing adverse events, trust in nurses and satisfaction with nursing care, and they extend existing nursing studies by addressing missed care and care dependency together from the perspective of patients. IMPACT: We urge nurse managers to consider the role of misscare in the impact of patients' level of care dependency on patient outcomes. Accordingly, nurse managers should focus first on interventions to eliminate misscare-communication. Effective interventions to address factors that impact communication and fulfilment of basic care are necessary to achieve better patient outcomes. REPORTING METHOD: EQUATOR guidelines were followed using the STROBE reporting method. PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION: No patient or public contribution. Patients only contributed to data collection. Data were obtained from patients hospitalized in the medical and surgical inpatient units of two public university hospitals.