Background: The nurse is responsible for all care concerning the patient. The care must be person-centered with a focus on the creation of interpersonal relationships. With sympathy for the patient, the relationship can become more meaningful and humor is allowed to be introduced. Can humor be a contributing factor to a more beneficial care?

Aim: The purpose was to describe how humor can be used in nursing in the relationship between nurse and patient.

Method: A literature review where we examined 13 qualitative and quantitative research articles published between the years of 2000-2021. These were analyzed with thematic analysis.

Results: Five main themes were identified for the results, which were: relationship building, humor as a tool, individuality, humor as a management strategy and a feeling of context. The main themes were divided into eight subthemes. All of these themes were based on the use of humor. The results showed that the use of humor facilitated the lives of patients, reduced their anxiety and gave them a sense of maintained quality of life despite the circumstances they faced.

Conclusion: Humor has proven helpful for most purposes in a caring situation, for both patients and nursing staff. Given individual factors and how they affect how humor is received, the phenomenon would be valuable to be able to take part of already in the basic education for nurses.