Evaluation of the relationship between nursing students' humor styles and the care behaviors perceived

It is perceived that nursing cares individuals to recuperate, remain well, and even meet death in the best comfort level. Humor is one of the remedial care strategies created in patient care. This study was led with 124 second, third and fourth year nursing students studying at a university in Istanbul between December 2019 and December 2020 as a searcher for the relationship between the humor styles of nursing students and their perceptive behaviors. For the research, the students were reached in the form of Personal Information Form, Humor Styles Questionnaire and Care Assessment Questionnaire by e-survey and online. Students' approval was received and the e-survey was shared with the students and the data were collected in accordance with the principle of confidentiality of information. Statistical analysis was conducted with a package program called SPSS (IBM SPSS Statistics 24). Frequency tables and descriptive statistics were used in the interpretation of the findings. In the survey, it was determined that the positive humor score averages of the students (Affiliative Humor 44,95 ± 7,26; Self-Enhancing Humor 36,50 ± 9,85) were higher than their negative humor average score (Aggressive Humor 17,22 ± 7,22; Self-Defeating Humor 26,86 ± 9,99). The total CAQ mean score of the students was determined as 6,38 ± 0,51, and the perception of students' care behaviors is at a decent level. In the research, it was determined that individuals with positive humor style had a significant relationship with many sub-dimensions of care perceptions. Accordingly, it shows that humor positively affects perceptions of caring behaviors in people with a positive humor style. Humor is a skill that can be developed. It is recommended to determine the styles of students with negative humor style in their education process, to raise awareness on this issue and to gain humor skills with appropriate sociability. Keywords: Humor, nursing care, nursing, care perception, humor style