Introduction:
Nurses’ professionalism is an important component of the assessment of childcare quality during hospitalisation.

Aim of the research: Assessment of parental satisfaction with the professionalism of nursing care in paediatric surgical departments.

Material and methods:
The cohort study was conducted in a group of 127 parents of children hospitalised in surgical departments. The Polish adaptation of the Emphatic questionnaire and the original questionnaire were applied in the study.

Results:
The median of overall parental satisfaction with child nursing professionalism was 4.3 (3.8; 4.7). A low level of satisfaction with nursing care in the specific criteria was observed only for The nurse introduced herself by name: 2.0 (1.0; 3.0). Statistical significance was demonstrated between the overall level of parental satisfaction with care regarding Professional Attitude and the reason of the child’s hospitalisation (p = 0.017) as well as the number of children in a family (p = 0.001). The child’s developmental stage, the mode of admission to hospital, and the parents’ sex differentiated parental satisfaction regarding selected components of the professionalism of nursing care (p < 0.05). The strongest relationships were demonstrated between the level of overall satisfaction for Professional attitude and the satisfaction level for the specific criterion The nurse greeted the parents/guardians kindly at admission/visits (rho = 0.803).

Conclusions:
A high level of parental satisfaction with nurses’ professionalism was observed. The optimization of care is especially needed in the area of nurses introducing themselves. The determinants of the level of overall satisfaction were as follows: the reason for hospitalisation, the number of children in a family, and the attitude of the nursing team.