Communication skills and collaboration among healthcare providers in a private hospital in Iloilo City

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the communication skills and collaboration among healthcare providers in a private hospital in Iloilo City, their personality type such as extrovert, introvert or ambivert, and their role perception like professional, psychosocial and communication, and patient care management role as well as the relationship between these variables. This is a descriptive-relational study which employs a one-shot survey design and collected data from 151 staff nurses in a private hospital in Iloilo City using a combination of structured and validated, pre-tested researcher-made questionnaire based on the objectives and the data to be gathered in the study. Permission to conduct the study was secured from the Hospital and Nursing Directors prior to the administration of instrument and ethical considerations. Data were processed electronically using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Statistical analysis was both descriptive; frequency distribution and percentages were employed to describe the univariate data, Chi-square was utilized to determine whether or not there is a significant relationship between the variables; Gamma and Cramer’s V were used to measure the strength of relationship among variables. Findings revealed that majority of the nurses demonstrate only fair communication skills and have extrovert personality type. A big proportion of the staff nurses have clearer perceptions of their roles such as professional, psychosocial and communication and patient care management role; however, there are still some nurses who do not perceive some aspects under the three domains especially the professional role of nursing. They generally display very good collaboration to physicians, fellow nurses and other members of the health team but they are more contented in collaborating with their fellow nurses than the rest of the healthcare providers. There is a significant relationship between communication skills and personality type; personality type and overall collaboration; perceived professional role and collaboration; perceived psychosocial and communication role and collaboration and the relationship between perceived patient care management role and collaboration. However, no significant relationship exists between communication skills and the three domains under role perceptions; and between communication skills and collaboration. Moreover, the relationship between communication skills and collaboration when personality type is controlled found to be no significance in extrovert and introvert but revealed a significant relationship in ambivert personality. Likewise, a significant relationship between communication skills and collaboration when psychosocial and communication role perception is not perceived but there is no significance when it is a perceived role. The communication skills has no bearing in the collaboration when professional role and patient care management role perception is controlled.