The Impact of Effective Nurse-Patient Communication on Patients’ Satisfaction at Port Said Primary Health Care Centers

Background: Effective nursing-patient communication fosters a supportive and healing environment, which is essential for patient recovery and overall well-being. Aim: Assess the impact of effective nurse-patient communication on patients’ satisfaction at Port Said primary health care centers. Research design: A descriptive cross-sectional design. Setting: The study was conducted in four Port Said primary health care centers. Subjects: A convenient sample of 100 nurses, including all available nurses dealing with consecutive patients at Port Said primary health care units. While 100 patients were selected from the dealers for those centers. Tools of data collection: Two tools were used; The first tool: A self-administered questionnaire that included two parts: Part I: Demographic characteristics of study nurses. Part II: The Communication Skills Scale. Second Tool: This tool also contains two parts: Part I, which includes the patient's demographic characteristics. Part II: Patient satisfaction scale. Results: Our results revealed that 78% of the study nurses have highly effective communication skills, while 54% of the study patients are satisfied with the nurses' communication skills. There is a highly statistically significant relation between the educational level of the study nurses and their total communication skills, while there was no statistically significant relation between study nurses’ age, gender, residence, educational level, and patient satisfaction with nurses' communication. Furthermore, there was a statistically significant positive correlation between the total score of communication skills and patient satisfaction. Conclusion: More than three-fourths of the study nurses have high effective communication skills, while more than half of the study patients are satisfied with nurses' communication skills. Recommendations: Healthcare organizations should prioritize enhancing nurses’ communication skills through targeted training and conduct workshops about therapeutic communication skills to help newly hired nurses effectively use therapeutic communication techniques.