The professional behaviors of intensive care nurses are very important in providing and developing the quality of nursing practice in intensive care units. The present study designed as a descriptive study was performed on 61 nurses who were working at a university hospital in Ankara and volunteerly accepted to be involved in the study with the aim of determining the professional behaviors of intensive care nurses. The data of the study were collected using a form questioning the demographic characteristics of nurses and developed by the researchers and “The Behavioral Inventory for Professionalism in Nursing” (BIPN). According to the data analyzed, the nurses of whom 52.0% (n=32) were in the age group of 26-30 years, 43.0% (n=26) had a 6-10 year-period of working experience and 61.0% (n=37) were working as an intensive care nurse took the lowest BIPN scores from membership to professional organizations (¯X:0.082), autonomy (¯X:0.107) and writing scientific article (¯X:0.148), and the highest scores from research (¯X:0.300), and competency and continuing education (¯X:0.139). All of the nurses have had high BIPN scores from research, and competency and continuing education, and nurses who have been working in the intensive care less than 5 years have had higher BIPN scores. The managers of intensive care units are suggested to inform the intensive care nurses about professional behaviors and their importance, and encourage them in attending scientific activities and education programs and in membership to professional organizations.

Keywords: Nursing, professional behaviour, intensive care