Establishing an effective communication with patients is an essential aspect of nursing care. However, most of studies described the nurse-patient relationship as weak. Recognition of barriers in nurse-patient’s effective communication from their viewpoint could facilitate the actions need to be taken for removing such barriers. The study aimed to assess barriers of nurse-patient’s effective communication from nurse's viewpoints.
Methods and Materials:
This descriptive study was undertaken in 2013, with a sample of 100 nurses drawn from two educational hospitals in jahrom. They were selected by random sampling. Data were gathered through a questionnaire with 30 questions for nurses on a 5-point Likert rating scale.It assess' four aspects of communication barriers including (job characteristics, socio-demographic factors, clinical condition of patient and environmental factor). Data were analyzed using SPSS19 software, descriptive statistics (percentage, frequency, mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (kolmograph nonparametric test, Mann-Whitney and Spearman correlation test).
Results:
The results of this study showed that the greatest barriers of Nurse - Patient communication related to Occupational characteristics of nurses with an average score of 78/24± 9/80. Environmental factors, socio-demographic factors and clinical conditions of the patients, respectively, were communication barriers that nurses have more emphasis on it. In this study, found a statistically significant correlation between mean scores of communication barriers with age and working hours of nurses.
Conclusion:
Nurses also perceived as major barriers to communication have been identified in relation to the characteristics of their job. Thus health manager should put their attempts on eliminating or modifying the most important barriers announced by nurses.