Does Effective shift Handover and Communication is Really Important at Bedside? - A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Introduction: Effective handovers facilitates the continuity of care and enhances patient safety. Handovers are defined as the transition of the accountability of patient care from one nursing staff  to another. The primary goal of shift handover is to communicate the patient’ clinical information and to provide a safe and high-quality care; however poor information communication during nonstandard and ineffective shift handover may endanger patient safety. Many researches also suggested a checklist of items be used to structure the shift handover. Their rationale was that written material introduces a certain redundancy in the otherwise completely verbal handover which reduces the possibility for errors in communication. Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of communication in terms of practice shift handovers at bedside among staff nurses of wards. Method: A Cross-sectional design, quantitative research approach was adopted. Sample population was staffs Nurses of the hospital who all were working in the wards were selected by using Probability Simple random sampling technique. Data analysis was done using descriptive and inferential statistics using SPSS version 20. Result: In pre-test, the mean score obtained was 12.75 and the standard deviation was 2.807, whereas in post-test, the mean score was 15.55 and the standard deviation was 1.849. The paired ‘t’-value obtained was (– 4.247) at 0.05 level of significance. And the calculated p value was (0.000*). P value is less than 0.05 level of significance. It inferred that there is a significant difference between pre-test practice score and post-test practice score. Conclusion: Proper Communication helps in Continuity of Patient Care which will improve the patient outcome. Highest priority is to give the shift handover at bedside and involve patient and family members, also develop the communication skills of existing staffs.