Background: Communication is the life blood of any organization. Intradepartmental communication among nurses identified as a key factor in patient safety particularly during an interaction called nurse to nurse handoff. Once nurses have all information about the patient this will reflect on nurses’ empowerment. The study aimed at determining effect of an educational program about intradepartmental communication among nurses on nurses' empowerment through; assessing the knowledge of nurses about intradepartmental communication pre and post intervention, assessing adequacy of exchange of shift report among staff nurses pre and post intervention & assessing level of nurses’ empowerment pre and post intervention. A quasi-Experimental design was used in carrying out the study. The study subjects were 50 staff nurse have more than one- year experience in their work setting. The study setting was Medical units in Benha University Hospitals. Tools of data collection were; Knowledge questionnaire that contained 25 question about communication & reporting, Observational checklist to observe the nurse-to-nurse communication during handoff contained 64 items, and nurse's empowerment scale tool to assess the studied staff nurse's empowerment, it consisted of 59 items. Data was collected three times: pre-program, immediately post-program, and follow-up after 3 months of the program. Needs’ assessment tool that aimed to assess the study subjects' needs related to the main contents of the educational program was used pre-program. The results showed that there was statistical significant improvement in the studied staff nurses’ knowledge and practice related to communication after implementation of the educational program, also there was statistical significant improvement in the studied staff nurses’ empowerment after implementation of educational program compared to before program implementation, and there was a positive statistically significant correlation between total knowledge and practice of communication and total empowerment scores at different times of assessment at three educational program phases. Conclusion: The present study assured that the educational program was effective in improving knowledge and practice of the staff nurses’ communication that improves their empowerment. The study recommended that Communication among nurses during handoff should occur beside the patient bed to exchange adequate information about the patient for continuity of nursing care. Attention should be given from hospital nursing managers to communication of staff nurse in the clinical setting. Continuous training programs about communication &documentation for staff nurses should be done.
Key words: Communication - Handoff -Nurse - Educational program - Empowerment
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