Background: Caring is the essence of nursing. The ability to provide safe and quality health care service to patients and their families is an essential characteristic of a professional nurse. The health care system of Saudi Arabia is currently undergoing a transformation. This transformation is presenting challenges to the nursing workforce in meeting the health care needs of the Saudi population. This study is directed toward assessing the perception of caring of the nurses working in a tertiary hospital so nursing leaders can do the requisite interventions to support other nurses in caring for their patients.

Method: A total of 231 nurses working in one tertiary government hospital from the Ministry of Health, Saudi Arabia, were conveniently selected to participate in a survey. The survey included demographics and Caring Dimensions Inventory (CDI-25) tool. Both bivariate and multivariate analytical procedures were employed to determine the associated factors of the CDI-25 score among nurses.

Results: The three dimensions that were most related to caring were D6 (Providing privacy for a patient) (M = 4.76, SD = 0.44), D9 (Measuring the vital signs of a patient) (M=4.67, SD= 0.58) and D25 (Being cheerful with a patient) (M = 4.67, SD = 0.58). The reported working experience in years as nurses was significantly associated with the total CDI score.

Conclusion: The perceived caring phenomenon among nurses was influenced by the length of their working experience. Therefore, the interventions to improve the perception of caring should be based on the nurse’s years of practice.

Keywords: Cross-sectional, caring, health care, professionalism, Saudi Arabia