Assessment of Interpersonal Communication Skills and Related Factors in Nursing and Midwifery Students

Communication skills have been considered as one of the basic social skills and in medicine field, too, communication is the main component of patient care. Therefore, in students of medical-related fields, the ability of establishing efficient communication with members of medical team leads to the advancement of educational and therapeutic goals and has a significant impact on their performance in patient care. The aim of this study was to investigate interpersonal communication skills in nursing and midwifery students and its related factors.
This descriptive-analytic study was conducted on 347 nursing and midwifery students of Azad University of Rasht Selected randomly in 2016. Data gathering tool was a standardized questionnaire of interpersonal communication skills containing 19 items. Data analysis was done using analytical statistical tests such as Pearson correlation coefficient, t- test and chi-square and through SPSS version 22.
Mean age of students was 22.59±6.38 years. Mean score of communication skills was 64.17±8.72 in midwifery students and 65.62±7.97 in nursing students. In whole, 57.3% of students had communication problems. Students’ interpersonal communication score showed no statistically significant association with variables of age, educational level and marital status. But, there was a significant correlation between the midwifery students’ grade point average and their interpersonal communication level (P= 0.03).
Due to the unfavorable status of interpersonal communication skills among students, planning for teaching these skills and holding practical workshops in this area should be considered as a priority.