Psychological Ownership of Nursing Care: A Qualitative Content Analysis

Background: Nursing care is one of the main tasks of nursing. Currently, organizations are trying to improve the quality of nursing care to satisfy their patients and reduce the cost and length of hospital stays. Psychological ownership (PO) is intended to be a shortcut to achieving this goal through cognitive-emotional changes in nurses. Objectives: This study was conducted to investigate PO in nursing care. Methods: The present study was performed with a qualitative content analysis method. The purposive sample was selected based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. The data were collected from Iranian nurses from May 2013 to November 2021 in semi-structured, in-depth, one-on-one interviews and subsequently analyzed using the method of Graneheim and Lundman. A code of ethics and required permissions were obtained. Lincoln and Guba’s criteria were used to ensure the reliability of the study, and MAXQDA software (version 10) was used for data management. Results: Data analysis was performed using the conventional qualitative analysis on 13 nurses (mean age: 39 years; 69% female), resulting in the extraction of 395 primary codes, 71 subcategories, 16 subcategories, and 4 main categories (e.g., professional competence, practical efficacy, holistic advocacy, and professional identity). Conclusions: The nurses understood that a sense of ownership of nursing meant seeking to acquire sufficient professional competence and an appropriate position in practice to see themselves as supportive and influential in the healthcare system and have a sense of professional identity.