Nursing care is what patients encounter during their stay in hospitals, complaints of poor attitude, lack of adequate care, carefree attitude among healthcare workers toward patients appear to be on the increase in government hospitals. The study aimed to explore patients’ expression on nursing care in state specialist hospitals, Ondo State, Nigeria. The study adopted descriptive phenomenological design to investigate patients’ expression on nursing care while on admission. A study population of patients who spent over 2 to 4 weeks on admission and have experienced and interacted with nurses while receiving care. Purposive sampling technique was used in selecting 20 participants for this study across the two State Specialist Hospitals at saturation point. The researcher with the help of interview guide conducted an in-depth face to face interview with the participants. The qualitative process of data collection involves interviews, documentation, and observations, using a reliable and valid recording instrument. The data collected were analyzed using MAXQDA. Data analysis strategies consisted of using qualitative software, key words, phrases, and codes, which contributed to identifying three themes and ten subthemes (a) Patients expectations (b) Patients experience and (c) patients satisfaction. The findings indicated that majority of the participants had expected nurses to be kind, cheerful, responsive, honest and friendly, and not to be harsh and rude. Most of the participants have positive experiences with the nurses but some respondents have negative experience. Participant also expressed their satisfactions with nursing care. In conclusion, some patients encountered rude or carefree nurses who showed lack of empathy and they were not satisfied with the care rendered. Efforts should be geared towards providing prompt care to all patients irrespective of their disease condition and status.

Keywords: Patients, Patients’ Expression, Nursing Care,

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