ABSTRACT
Introduction: Today studies have shown that communication between the physician/or the nurse with the patient treated as a clinical skill and considered as one of the main effective factors in improving both client's satisfaction and health care outcomes. The aim of this study was to determine the correlation between nurses' communication skills and inpatient service quality in the hospitals of Kashan University of Medical Sciences, 2011
Methods and Materials: In this correlation study using a stratified sampling, 384 patients from hospitals of Kashan University of Medical Sciences were selected. A three-section questionnaire for assessing respectively demographic characteristics, nurse's communication skill, and inpatient service quality was used to collect the data. For communication skills, instrument validity and reliability were tested by content validity method and Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.92, respectively on 20 patients in the hospitals under study. In measuring the service quality, SERVQUAL Scale was used. With regard to analyzing the data, Freedman's statistical test was applied to study the service quality dimensions versus inpatient service quality. Also Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was applied to detect the type and level of relationship among the nurses' communication skills
Findings: Results showed that there was a significant correlation between communication skills and inpatient service quality in the hospitals [P-value=0.001 and R=0.782]. The patients noticed a positive and significant correlation between communication skills and service quality dimensions. The intensity of the relationship between the two variables from the highest to the lowest is 0.708, 0.689, 0.637, 0.552, and 0.514, respectively for the assurance, reliability, responsiveness, empathy, and tangibles
Conclusion: Consequently, improving the communication skills for the hospital personnel can improve the service quality contribution of hospitals