A survey on the effects of interpersonal communication skills education of family health workers on the satisfaction level of their clients in Mashhad City Health Centers

Effective interpersonal communication between health care providers and clients is one of the important elements in improving client satisfaction, compliance and health outcomes. Thus, the aim of this quasi-experimental study was to determine the effect of interpersonal communication skills training of family health workers on the satisfaction level of their clients. A total of 60 family health workers (30 as experimental group, 30 as control group) and 94 clients (47 as experimental group, 47 as control group) from 35 Mashhad health centers in Mashhad participated in each stage of this study. The collection tool was a client satisfaction questionnaire about the health workers interaction. Data collection was carried out at the pre- and post stage of the intervention. After the first stage, an interpersonal communication skills workshop was carried out for the experimental group workers in two days. Then, the later stage of data collection was carried out with the same tool. Analysis of the data showed a significant difference between the mean of the satisfaction marks of the clients before and after the intervention in the case group (p=.019). A significant difference was also observed on the clients satisfaction marks mean between the case and control groups after the intervention (p = 0.001). The result of this study indicated that the clients satisfaction raises after the interpersonal communication skills training of the health workers. Thus, for improving the clients satisfaction and health outcomes, it is recommonded to implement interpersonal communication skills workshops for health care providers.