Factors That Influence Communication Between Registered Nurses And Patients At Intermediate Hospital Katutura, Khomas Region, Namibia

ABSTRACT

Communication is the ideas and information exchanged and actions or reactions that arise from that exchange and contact. What really defines the communication is the relationship between the communicator and the recipient. Therefore, for a good nurse-patient relationship to be established, nurse patient communication must be effective. The study described in this paper was to thoroughly investigate the factors influencing communication between registered nurses and patients at Intermediate Hospital Katutura, Khomas Region, Namibia. With a cross sectional research study design, simple random sampling technique, the researcher sought to discover factors perceived by registered nurses and patients that influence nurse-patient communication and how these affect the quality of nursing care. The tools for data collection used by the researcher were a close-ended questionnaires and an observational checklist, self-administered for registered nurses and the researcher filled in the one for patients. The main research problem was that; communication problems have been raised by various stakeholders against the registered nurses which is resulting in poor nurses-patient relationship. Sample characteristics were analysed using data collected from 67 registered nurses, 92 patients and 24 observed registered nurses. Based on the information given by respondents, statistical technique Epi Info software version 3.5.4. was employed to reduce, summarise, evaluate and communicate numerical information by presenting them in the form of tables and charts.