Nursing care satisfaction linked to postoperative recovery in 131-patient cross-sectional study

Higher satisfaction with nursing care was associated with higher postoperative recovery quality scores 24 hours after surgery in a descriptive, cross-sectional, correlational study of 131 adult patients, according to the study abstract. The association remained significant after adjustment for age, health insurance status, preoperative hospital stay, surgical department and surgical approach, but the observational design cannot establish that nursing care satisfaction caused differences in recovery.

The participants were adults classified as American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status I–III who underwent elective procedures in the general, plastic and orthopedic surgery clinics of a training and research hospital in Turkey. Investigators assessed nursing care satisfaction using the Newcastle Satisfaction with Nursing Scale and postoperative recovery quality using the Quality of Recovery-40 (QoR-40), both 24 hours after surgery. The analysis included non-parametric tests, Spearman correlation analysis and simple and hierarchical multiple linear regression, with collinearity and residual diagnostics and bootstrap verification. Statistical significance was defined as p less than 0.05.

The median nursing satisfaction score was 73.68, and the median QoR-40 score was 155.0. Patients aged 66–92 years and those without health insurance had lower recovery-quality scores. Shorter preoperative hospital stays and laparoscopic procedures were associated with significantly higher QoR-40 scores. A shorter preoperative stay was also associated with higher nursing satisfaction scores (p = 0.008), whereas the difference in nursing satisfaction by surgical approach did not reach statistical significance (p = 0.051). Nursing care satisfaction correlated positively with total QoR-40 scores, including the physical comfort, emotional state and psychological support domains.

In the regression analysis, nursing care satisfaction was significantly and positively associated with postoperative recovery quality and accounted for 7.7% of the variance in QoR-40 scores, a small effect size by conventional criteria. Adding nursing satisfaction significantly improved model fit beyond the covariates alone, and the association remained significant in the fully adjusted model. That model, incorporating nursing satisfaction, age, health insurance status, preoperative hospital stay, surgical department and surgical approach, explained 23.2% of the variance in recovery-quality scores.

The findings are limited by the cross-sectional design, the sample of 131 patients, the single-hospital setting and the assessment of nursing satisfaction and recovery at the same 24-hour postoperative time point. They therefore demonstrate an adjusted association rather than a causal effect. The abstract does not report the results of any longitudinal follow-up or intervention, so the findings cannot show whether increasing nursing care satisfaction would improve postoperative recovery.

Subject of Research: Association between nursing care satisfaction and postoperative recovery quality

Article Title: Is nursing care satisfaction independently associated with postoperative recovery quality? A cross-sectional study with hierarchical regression analysis

Article References: Gümüs, K., & Kavak, T. (2026). Is nursing care satisfaction independently associated with postoperative recovery quality? A cross-sectional study with hierarchical regression analysis. BMC Nursing. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-026-05375-4

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DOI: 10.1186/s12912-026-05375-4

Keywords: nursing care satisfaction, postoperative recovery, cross-sectional study, surgical patients, QoR-40, hierarchical regression, patient outcomes, Turkey, nursing, care, satisfaction, independently