<![CDATA[Background: Nursing care is the health service most directly connected to inpatients, since nurses interact with patients around the clock throughout treatment and recovery. Hospital service success depends heavily on nurse performance, yet complaints regarding slow responsiveness, inadequate communication, and lapses in nursing care documentation remain common in inpatient settings, raising questions about how performance translates into patient satisfaction. Objective: This study aimed to analyze the relationship between nurse performance and patient satisfaction in the inpatient ward of Dr. Etty Asharto Regional General Hospital, Batu City. Methods: A cross-sectional design was employed. The independent variable was nurse performance and the dependent variable was patient satisfaction. Using purposive sampling, 36 nurses and 48 inpatients meeting the inclusion criteria were recruited. Data were collected using validated Likert-scale questionnaires and analyzed with Spearman's rank correlation test. Results: Most nurses (80.5%) demonstrated good performance and most patients (70.8%) reported being very satisfied with nursing care. The Spearman correlation test showed a significant relationship between nurse performance and patient satisfaction (p = 0.002; p < 0.05), although the correlation coefficient (0.189) indicated a very weak strength of association. Conclusion: Nurse performance is significantly, though weakly, associated with inpatient satisfaction, indicating that performance alone does not fully account for variation in how satisfied patients feel. Hospitals are encouraged to complement performance management with communication and time-management training to strengthen patient-centered inpatient care.]]>
