Through a Filter of Empathy and Understanding: Patients' Experiences of Missed Nursing Care.

Findings rely on self-reported experiences, which may be shaped by recall bias or social desirability, especially because participants were empathetic toward nurses. The sample was small and purposive, so it explores meaning rather than estimating how common these experiences are. Patients who were more dissatisfied, more severely ill, cognitively impaired, or unable to communicate may not have participated. The study was done in one Danish university hospital, so transferability to other health systems is uncertain. The term missed nursing care was deliberately not introduced, which may have helped participants speak in their own words but may also have made omissions harder to identify consistently. Interviews took place 3 to 49 days after discharge, so recall varied. The interviewer had no clinical nursing background, which may have affected recognition of nursing care cues.

The study was supported by Aalborg University Hospital. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.

Do not conclude that patients were satisfied and missed nursing care is harmless because they excused delays. The study found many patients still noticed omitted or delayed care, but they reframed it as understandable staff busyness, which can hide unmet needs.