Perceived Nurse—Physician Communication in Patient Care and Associated Factors in Public Hospitals of Jimma Zone, South West Ethiopia: Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

BackgroundNurse–physician communication has been shown to have a significant impact on the job satisfaction and retention of staff. In areas where it has been studied, communication failure between nurses and physicians was found to be one of the leading causes of preventable patient injuries, complications, death and medical malpractice claims.ObjectiveThe objective of this study is to determine perception of nurses and physicians towards nurse-physician communication in patient care and associated factors in public hospitals of Jimma zone, southwest Ethiopia.MethodsInstitution based cross-sectional survey was conducted from March 10 to April 16, 2014 among 341 nurses and 168 physicians working in public hospitals in Jimma zone. Data was collected using a pre-tested self-administered questionnaire; entered into EpiData version 3.1 and exported to Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16.0 for analysis. Factor analysis was carried out. Descriptive statistics, independent sample t-test, linear regression and one way analysis of variance were used. Variables with P-value < 0.05 were considered as statistically significant.ResultsThe response rate of the study was 91.55%. The mean perceived nurse-physician communication scores were 50.88±19.7% for perceived professional respect and satisfaction, and 48.52±19.7% for perceived openness and sharing of patient information on nurse-physician communication. Age, salary and organizational factors were statistically significant predictors for perceived respect and satisfaction. Whereas sex, working hospital, work attitude individual factors and organizational factors were significant predictors of perceived openness and sharing of patient information in nurse-physician communication during patient care.ConclusionPerceived level of nurse-physician communication mean score was low among nurses than physicians and it is attention seeking gap. Hence, the finding of our study suggests the need for developing and implementing nurse-physician communication improvement strategies to solve communication mishaps in patient care.

Understanding the impact of interprofessional collaboration on the quality of care: a case report from a small-scale resource limited health care environment

“…Mostly surveys based on self report questionnaires have been used to address the different perspectives 13,21,22. Within self report surveys many options exist, further complicating comparability of study results 15.…”

“…Within self report surveys many options exist, further complicating comparability of study results 15. However, it has been well-described in literature that different medical professionals (e.g., nurses and physicians) have different perspectives on the quality of their interprofessional communication and factors affecting effective communication 13,22. In small-scale settings the use of questionnaires for assessing interprofessional communication has been reported for an intensive care unit department (making use of separate questionnaires)22 with stark differences in perspectives of nurses and physicians.…”

Professionalism and Occupational Well-Being: Similarities and Differences Among Latin American Health Professionals

“…In consequence, the risk of teamwork and communication failures increases. Empirical research has shown that those failures are the leading causes of worldwide patient safety incidents in health care institutions (Abdi et al, 2015; Hailu et al, 2016). Furthermore, working in hierarchical work environments also increases the risk of burnout in nurses (Hakanen et al, 2014).…”

Características de la comunicación entre profesionales de enfermería y medicina para la seguridad del paciente = Characteristics of nurses-physicians communication for patient safety

“…Los autores del estudio opinaron que esto podía tener un efecto negativo en la seguridad del paciente ya que, aceptando que los errores humanos son inevitables, el primer paso es reconocer el error y después discutir qué ha pasado. Hailu et al (2016) utilizaron para evaluar la comunicación un cuestionario que adaptaron y modificaron a partir de un estudio realizado en Irán, además se refirieron a estudios realizados en otros lugares del mundo, pero en ningún momento hicieron referencia a la realización de la validación a su población, Etiopía.…”