Background: Optimizing the quality of health care is essential for delivery of effective, efficient and cost-benefit professional health services to people and communities. As nurses are the largest groups among health care professionals and are legally liable and morally responsible for their care, so their perspectives on quality of nursing care is very important. The purpose of this qualitative study was to define and describe “quality of nursing care” from the perspective of nurse experts and clinical nurses. Materials and methods: In this qualitative study, data were collected in two phases (10 individual interviews and 5 focus group discussions). Fifty-four nurses and experts participated by purposeful sampling. Data analysis was conducted by latent content analysis to achieve a definition of nursing care quality. Results: After taking into consideration different statements from experts in nursing and clinical nurses' perspectives on quality, we arrived at the final definition of optimal health care: "delivery of safe care based on nursing standards which eventuates client satisfaction". Also, both participating groups emphasized on collaborating with social workers in health care (teamwork). Conclusion: Findings revealed that in nurses' perspectives on quality definition, two important aspects that have been taken into consideration were: "standard of care" and "client satisfaction". Also coordinating organizational and socio-cultural workers in delivering quality nursing care was deemed to be important.

Keywords: Quality, Nursing care, Qualitative research, Content analysis.

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