Background and purpose: Caring, the core concept of nursing, have been defined in different ways since the old past years, but care is an abstract concept in nursing practice yet. There are lots of discussions and challenges between scientists in nursing and few analyses and review of articles have been done about concept of care until now. The purpose of the study was to identify how nursing care is conceptualized by nurses in Iran, and to develop guidelines for clinical practice.Materials and methods: This study employed the hybrid model to define the concept of care through 3 phases. For the theoretical phase attributes of care were identified through a review of the literature (until 2011), and in depth of interviews were conducted for the fieldwork phase to develop attributes from the data and to verify the attributes identified from the literature review. In third phase attributes and final analysis of care were extracted from the first and second phase. Purposive sampling was done for 20 participants (16 nurses and 4 members of faculty), who were interviewed from two university and university hospitals in Shiraz and Tehran.Results: Core attributes of care include assessing patients needs, humanity, duty responsibility, routine activity and sacred activity. However, core attributes of a good nurse who cares a patient include creative, responsible, decisive, skillful in relationship trustfully, having correct and exact ideas, and being skillful in practice.Conclusion: The results of the study identify the concept of care partly. Clearing concept of care causes some good effects, include: more attention to patient’s needs, holistic caring, patients satisfaction increasing, professional development and cost effective caring.