The moderating effects of nurses' background characteristics on the relationship between family-centred care perception and practice for hospitalized children and their families in Malawi

Purpose: Globally, limited information is available on the relationship between the perception and practice of family-centered care (FCC), and the moderating effects of nurses' background characteristics on this relationship. This study investigated the relationship between FCC perception and FCC practice and the moderating effects of the nurses' background characteristics on this relationship.Design and methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted using a two-stage stratified sampling method. Data were collected from 444 nurses using the Family Centered Care Questionnaire-Revised and analyzed using IBM SPSS Version 25. The Hayes PROCESS macro model, version 3, was integrated into SPSS to examine the moderating effects at a significance level of 0.05.Results: The response rate was 98%, and a statistically significant positive association was found between FCC perception and FCC practice (r = 0.353, p < .001). Gender of a nurse (Delta R-2 = 0.0206, p < .002), having children (Delta R-2 = 0.0231, p < .001), experience (Delta R-2 = 0.0107, p = .028), and working in a medical-surgical ward (Delta R-2 = 0.0208, p = .008) had a statistically significant moderating effect on the relationship between FCC perception and FCC practice.Conclusion: These findings provide minimal evidence of the existence of non-modifiable moderators of FCC. Future studies with modifiable moderators are therefore needed. Practice implications: Understanding the moderating effects of nurses' background characteristics on the relationship between FCC perception and FCC practice may facilitate the development of FCC interventions that favor these background characteristics and facilitate the integration of FCC into routine policies and practices.