Interpersonal communication between registered nurses and surgical patients on admission to surgical wards at the Oshakati intermediate hospital
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Date
2008
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Abstract
The quality of nursing practice is determined by a variety of factors. One of the most important of these factors is the way in which communication takes place and the information given to patients in the health care facility; in particular between nurse and patient
The study focused on patients that were admitted to surgical wards to be operated on. Patients who have been admitted for surgery are usually anxious because the procedure will be performed under general anaesthesia, and the procedure is subject to many risks
The overall purpose of the study was to explore and describe inter-personal communication between nurses and patients who have been admitted to a surgical ward, with specific reference to the kind of information that is conveyed to them
An exploratory, descriptive, quantitative, non-experimental approach was used for this study. The study population consisted of two groups, namely patients admitted for surgery and registered nurses working in surgical wards at Oshakati Hospital. A sample for patients were selected by random sampling. To ensure a confidence interval level of 95 hundred(100) patients were selected. The second group in the population, registered nurses working in adult surgical wards, numbered ten (10) individuals. For purposes of this study in this group the population and the sample was the same
Two structured questionnaires were developed and used to gather information from patients and registered nurses. The questionnaires for registered were personally handed to the registered nurses and all the questionnaires were completed and returned back to the researcher. The researcher and a research assistant collected data from patients by interviewing them using structured questionnaires
Data were analysed according to an ordinal scale that ranked responses on a scale of one to four (1-4). The average frequency of an occurrence, i.e. the value of each item, was calculated y adding the numerical value of all responses to a question, and dividing the sum by the number of responses
The findings of the study indicated that the surgical patients are not provided with adequate information on admission
It was highly recommended from this study that registered nurses must receive proper in-service education on the communication process to orientate surgical patients on admission and to share the necessary information that is needed
Ethical principles were adhered to during the study
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Keywords
Nurse and patient, Surgical nursing, Interpersonal communication