Investigating the Relationship between Communication Skills of Treatment Staff and Patient’s Safety Culture: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background: One of the most important effective factors in increasing patient satisfaction and improving health and treatment results is proper communication between physician and nurse, and the patient. The present study was conducted with the aim of determining the relationship between the communication skills of the medical staff and patient’s safety culture. Methods: This was an analytical study conducted among 277 working medical staff including nurses, paramedics, full-time geographical employment doctors and anesthesia, and operating room technicians in Shahid Sadoughi Hospital in Yazd by stratified random sampling in 2022. The instrument used was the safety culture standard questionnaire made by the health care quality and research agency and communication skills of Barton J. Data analysis was done with SPSS 25 software, Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis, and multiple linear regression tests. Results: The overall mean and standard deviation of patient safety culture was 3.04 ± 0.23, which indicates the average status of safety culture in the studied hospital, and the overall mean of communication skills among medical staff was 3.36 ± 0.40. Which reports a relatively strong level of this skill. The results of linear regression showed that 2 components of communication skills (listening and feedback) have a positive and significant effect on the improvement of patient safety culture, so that they are able to explain 33 percent of the variance of patient safety culture changes. Conclusion: Based on the findings of the research, the communication skills of the medical staff have a significant effect on patient's safety culture. Therefore, in order to improve the patient’s safety culture among them, special attention should be paid to communication skills because effective communication is considered a vital element in effective care, and in the medical system it has a significant effect on the quality of care and consequently increases the satisfaction of patients.