The purposes of this qualitative research were to explore the meaning of psychosocial nursing care and to identify barriers to providing such care. Informants were 58 registered nurses who had been working in medical wards for more than 1 year. Data collection methods included interview, focus group and participatory observation. Thematic analysis was applied. Nurses described the psychosocial care as any caring strategies that aimed to respond to patients' needs, excluding physical need. Psychosocial nursing care appeared to operate at two levels; basic and advanced. Barriers to provide psychosocial care included workload and caseload; nursing culture; administration; personal and environmental factors. The results of this research challenge nurses to make a change in their psychosocial nursing practices.