Assessing the Nurses' Knowledge and Awareness of Effective Verbal Communication Skills

Background: Effective listening and speaking constitutes more than 70% of our communication process. These skills are highly important, especially in nursing because nurses, as key members of the treatment process, have the highest amount of communication with patients. Therefore, it is crucial to assess the amount of the nurses' knowledge and awareness regarding these skills. We aimed to assess the nurses' awareness of verbal communication skills in the Ethics in Nursing Congress in 2010.Materials & Methods: In this descriptive survey, the data collection tool was a two-part questionnaire made by the researcher consisting of 8 demographic questions and 10 questions related to the participants' knowledge about effective listening and speaking skills. The face and content validity and reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed by related experts and a Chronbach' alpha of 0.80, respectively. The study population consisted of all employed nurses who participated in the Ethics in Nursing Congress. 160 nurses were ultimately selected. Data were analyzed using SPSS software, version 11.5.Results: 64% of the participants had a weak knowledge about verbal communication skills and only 36% had relative knowledge about listening and speaking skills. This is while verbal communication skills are considered as the foundations of communication in everyday life. Moreover, we found no significant relationship between social components and the participants' scores.Conclusion: We suggest enhancing the knowledge and awareness of nurses about these two fundamental skills to improve the patient-nurse relationship which most experts believe has a direct and considerable effect on the treatment of patients.