Barrier and Facilitators of Communication between Nurses and Chronic Patients; A Qualitative Content Analysis Study

Due to the nature of chronic disease, patients are in close contact with the treatment staff, especially nurses, and the need to establish correct therapeutic communication for them is more and more important, so the present study was performed aims to explain the barriers and facilitators of nurses' communication with chronic patients.

This research was of a qualitative type and in it 12 nurses working in inpatient wards affiliated to Hamedan University of Medical Sciences and 8 chronic patients hospitalized in the ward in 2011 were selected based on purpose-based sampling and the interviewees were interviewed using semi-structured in-depth interviews. All the interviews were recorded and then handwritten and analyzed using the method of constant comparison and qualitative content analysis.

Following data analysis, 3 main themes were extracted. The main themes include: organizational factors (three sub-themes: support of managers and planning, respect for nurses by superiors, holding educational workshops, environmental-cultural factors (two sub-themes: inappropriate working conditions, lack of trust of the patient and his companions in the nurse) and individual factors (two sub-themes: non-cooperation and interaction, long-term hospitalization).

The results of the research identified the most important influencing factors in the relationship between nurses and patients based on the experiences of nurses and patients through the identification of main and sub-themes. Therefore, it is recommended to carry out detailed managerial and organizational interventions and provide the necessary conditions to improve the process of therapeutic communication.