Fig. 2

Difference between nurses’ instructions and their understanding by patients. a In the pre-intervention survey period group, 70.0 % of patients (n = 32) instructed to “Call nurses at any time,” 33.3 % (n = 55) of patients instructed to “Call us at the time of need,” 75.3 % (n = 61) of patients instructed “No need to help,” understood nurses’ directions. Nurses had instructed 46, 165, and 81 patients, respectively. Some patients (30.4 %; n = 14) instructed to call nurses at any time understood the phrases “at the time of need” or “no need to help” differently; 66.7 % (n = 110) of patients instructed to call nurses at the time of need understood it as “at any time” (n = 15) or “no need to help” (n = 95), and 24.7 % (n = 20) of patients instructed “no need to help” understood it as “at any time” (n = 4) or “at the time of need” (n = 16). (b) In the post-intervention survey period group, similar tendencies were observed