Therapeutic communication and its associated factors among nurses working in public hospitals of Gamo zone, southern Ethiopia: application of Hildegard Peplau's nursing theory of interpersonal relations

Abera Mersha; Abebe Abera; Temamen Tesfaye; Tesfaye Abera; Admasu Belay; Tsegaye Melaku; Misaye Shiferaw; Shitaye Shibiru; Wubshet Estifanos; Senahara Korsa Wake

doi:10.1186/s12912-023-01526-z

Therapeutic communication and its associated factors among nurses working in public hospitals of Gamo zone, southern Ethiopia: application of Hildegard Peplau's nursing theory of interpersonal relations

BMC Nurs. 2023 Oct 13;22(1):381. doi: 10.1186/s12912-023-01526-z.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ School of Nursing, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Arba Minch University, Arba Minch, Arba Minch, Ethiopia. mershaabera@gmail.com.
² School of Nursing, Institute of Health, Jimma University, Jimma, Ethiopia.
³ School of Nursing and Midwifery, Institute of Health Sciences, Wollega University, Nekemte, Ethiopia.
⁴ School of Pharmacy, Institute of Health, Jimma University, Jimma, Ethiopia.
⁵ Public Health Specialist, Addis Ababa City Administration Health Bureau, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
⁶ School of Nursing, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Arba Minch University, Arba Minch, Arba Minch, Ethiopia.
⁷ College of Natural and Computational Science, Ambo University, Ambo, Ethiopia.

Abstract

Background: Therapeutic communication can assist nurses in achieving their goals. Effective nurse-patient communication can improve clinical outcomes and boosts patient satisfaction. But, there is an arming gap in therapeutic communication between nurses and patients in Ethiopia, which hinders the quality of nursing care. Some studies have been done on therapeutic and its barriers. Nevertheless, those studies did not fully address factors from different perspectives and were supported by nursing theories or models. Therefore, this study aimed to fill these gaps in the study setting.

Methods: Institution-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 408 nurses working in public hospitals of Gamo zone from December 1, 2021, to January 30, 2022. Out of the six hospitals in the Gamo zone, three were selected by simple random sampling method. The data were collected by an interview-administered Open Data Kit survey tool and analyzed by SAS version 9.4. Descriptive statistics were computed and a generalized linear model was used to identify associated factors.

Results: In this study, a standardized percentage of the maximum scale of therapeutic communication was 52.32%. Of the participants, 40.4% had high, 25.0% moderate, and 34.6% had low levels of therapeutic communication. Age, marital status, and qualification showed significant and positive relationships with the overall therapeutic communication. However, sex, working unit, nurse burnout, lack of empathy from nurses, challenging nursing tasks, lack of privacy, use of technical terms by nurses, lack of confidence in nurses, stress, unfamiliarity with the nursing job description, shortage of nurses, insufficient knowledge, lack of participation in decision making, and having contagious disease showed a significant and negative relationship with overall therapeutic communication.

Conclusions: This finding indicates a gap in therapeutic communication between nurses and patients, and modifiable factors are identified. Therefore, giving opportunities for nurses to improve their qualifications, a special attention to nurses working in stressful areas, sharing the burden of nurses, involving nurses and patients in decision-making, and motivating and creating a positive working environment is vital to improving therapeutic communication.

Keywords: Gamo zone; Nurse-patient relationship; Therapeutic communication.