The Perceived Communication Barriers and Attitude on Communication among Staff Nurses in Caring for Patients from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Background

The objectives of the study are to assess communication barriers, assess staff nurses’ attitude towards the importance of communication, to find out relationship between communication barriers and attitude of staff nurses, association between communication barriers perceived and selected demographic variables, association between attitude regarding importance of communication and selected demographic variables. The descriptive survey approach was used. Study was conducted among 100 staff nurses of various departments of Kasturba Hospital, Manipal. Convenient sampling technique was used to select samples. 3 tools were used for data collection and they are demographic Performa, tool to assess the communication barriers, and attitude about the importance of communication among staff nurses in caring patients from culturally and linguistically diverse background. Content validity and reliability of tools were established.

This study findings showed that majority of samples (71%) belonged to the age group of 20–30, (88%) are females,(58%) were diploma holders and about (49%) work in general wards. Majority with (71%) were from Karnataka and most of the samples (48%) included in the study have years of experience between 1–5 years. The verbal and nonverbal communication barriers were assessed and found that 79% of nurses experience moderate level of difficulty in communicating with patients.. Most of them (93%) had a favorable attitude towards the importance of communication. There was no significant association between communication barriers and selected demographic variables, but found a significant association between gender and communication barriers(x2=15.203, p<0.01).There is no significant association between attitude about importance of communication and selected demographic variables, no relationship between communication barriers and attitude about importance of communication(r= -0.037, p=0.715).

It was concluded that nurses experiences both verbal and non verbal communication difficulties in caring patients from culturally and linguistically diverse background and they have a favorable attitude towards the importance of communication for the same.