Current status and influencing factors of nurses' humanistic care ability in China：a cross-sectional study based on latent profile analysis

Background: The essence of nursing is humanistic care, and humanistic care ability has become a core concept in the clinical nursing service system and a key element of nurses' professional ability. However, existing studies mostly evaluate nurses’ humanistic care ability based on total scale scores, ignoring the heterogeneity within the nurse population. This study used latent profile analysis to identify potential profiles of nurses’ humanistic care ability and explore their influencing factors. Methods： This cross-sectional study was conducted from April to August 2025. Participants were clinical nurses recruited from 32 hospitals across 16 prefecture-level cities in Anhui Province, China. A demographic questionnaire, the Caring Ability Inventory (CAI), the Nurses’ Humanistic Literacy Self-rating Scale and the Knowledge-Attitude-Practice Questionnaire for Humanistic Care were used for data collection. A latent profile analysis was performed to characterize nurses' humanistic care ability, and influencing factors of the latent profiles were identified by univariate analysis and multinomial logistic regression analysis. Results： A total of 2721 nurses were enrolled. The score of humanistic care ability among clinical nurses in Anhui Province was 194 (178, 211) , and their humanistic care ability was divided into three latent profiles, namely low humanistic care - overall deficiency group(7.2%), moderate humanistic care - insufficient courage group(35.5%), and high humanistic care - balanced development group(57.3%). Logistic regression analysis indicated that age, educational background, administrative position, job satisfaction, voluntary choice of the nursing major, humanistic literacy, as well as knowledge, attitude, and practice of humanistic care were the influencing factors of the latent profiles categories of nurses' humanistic care ability (P<0.05). Conclusions： There exists group heterogeneity in humanistic care ability among clinical nurses in Anhui Province, which can be categorized into three latent profiles. Nursing managers can conduct individualized interventions according to the influencing factors of these profiles to enhance nurses’ humanistic care ability. Trial registration： Not applicable.