This study explored the relationship among hospital nurses’ communication competence, communication types, and organizational commitment to provide basic data for developing a program to improve internal communications and to promote nurses’ commi...
This study explored the relationship among hospital nurses’ communication competence, communication types, and organizational commitment to provide basic data for developing a program to improve internal communications and to promote nurses’ commitment to their organizations.
The subjects of this study included 316 nurses who have worked for over six month at department of internal, surgical, and ICU unit on two general hospitals in Chungnam province. The data were collected from October 4 to 11, 2007.
The tools of study were the Global Interpersonal Communication Competence Scale (GICC), which was developed by Kyung-Ho Huh (2003) for communication competence, and Communication Satisfaction Questionnaire, which was originally created by Downs and Hazen(1981) and revised by Yi-ah Seo(2002) for communication types.
Mowday, Steers, and Porter' tools(1979) revised by Kye-Jung Kim (1986) were used for organization committment.
The obtained data were analyzed using SPSS/PC+ 11.0 with frequency, percentage, Pearson's correlation, t-test and ANOVA.
The results of this study were as follows:
1. The mean score for the communication competence of the subject was 3.46±.35 out of 5.00. The mean score for the formal communication in the communication types was 3.18±.39; and for the informal communication, 2.59±.47. The mean score for organizational commitment was 3.19±.50. The mean score for downward communication in the formal communication was 3.47±.42; for horizontal communication, 3.06±.41; and for upward communication, 3.01±.54, indicating downward communication was the most frequently used.
2. Communication competence appeared to have a positive relationship w ith formal communication( r= . 3 2, p<0. 1 ) , and w ith informal communication(r=.16, p<0.1). Formal communication appeared to have the highest relationship with horizontal communication(r=.34, p<0.1), followed by downward communication(r=.31, p<0.1), and upward communication(r=.19, p<0.1).
3. Organizational commitment appeared to have a positive relationship w i t h f o rma l c ommu n i c a t i o n ( r = . 5 3 , p< . 0 1 ) , c ommu n i c a t i o n competence(r=.30, p<.01), and informal communication(r=.27, p<.01). Within the formal communication, horizontal communication appeared to have the highest relationship with organizational commitment(r=.47, p<.01), followed by upward communication(r=.47, p<.01), and downward communication(r=.40, p<.01).
4. The differences in communication competence, communication types , and orga niza tional commitment accord ing to general characteristics. There were significant differences according to age on informal communication(p<.01), organizational commitment(p<.01). There were significant differences according to marry on informal communication (p<.05), organizational commitment (p<.05). There were significant differences according to total clinical careers on informal communication (p<.01), organizational commitment(p<.05). The department appeared to hav e a statistically significant d ifference in all of the sectors: communication competence(p<.05), formal communication (p<.01), informal communication(p<.01), and organizational commitment(p<.01).
There were significant differences according to transfer experience on informal communication(p<.05) and horizontal communication(p<.05).
The communication education appeared to have a statistically significant difference in communication competence (p<.01), formal communication (p<.01), and be active in upward (p<.05), downward (p<.01), and horizontal communications (p<.05).
The results of this study suggest that nurses’ communication competence, and formal and informal communication influences organizational commitment. Thus, it is necessary to prepare a program to promote nurses’ communication competence and to develop a system to realize active communication.
In addition, since the results indicated that training concerning communication had an impact on enhancing nurses’ communication competence and active communication within an organization, it is highly recommended to provide systematic and continuous training concerning communication. I believe this will help promote nurses’ communication competence and active communication within an organization, and nurses’ organizational commitment, and accordingly, the efficiency of the nursing organization will be enhanced