Interpersonal communication skills and its association with personality dimensions of nurses in Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences, Iran, in 2015

Background: Communication is a necessity of social life which is very important in health care settings due to the type of work and clients. The aim of this study was determine the association between interpersonal communication skills (ICSs) and personality dimensions of nurses working in Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences. Materials and Methods: In this descriptive study, 223 nurses were selected by stratified random sampling method and they completed the Burton ICSs and the Revised NEO Personality Inventory . Data were analyzed using the Pearson correlation, independent t-test, and multiple linear regression at a significant level of P = 0.050. Results: Among the selected nurses, 9.9%, 75.8%, and 14.3% had a poor, moderate and good communication skills respectively. The association between age (P = 0.026) and work experience (P = 0.025) with ICSs were inversely significant. There was a significant correlation between good communication skills and the extroversion personality aspect (P = 0.001), pleasure (P < 0.001), and accountability (P = 0.039). The pleasure and extroversion were able to predict and explain 8.7% of the ICSs nurses. Conclusions: More than half of the nurses had difficulties in ICSs. The communication pattern of nurses is effective in their performance and quality of work; therefore, their personality dimensions and traits can be taken into account in the process of recruiting, transferring, or moving them. Hence, each person can be appropriately located in the right place in terms of the area of activity, and type and number of clients.