Influence of Nursing Explanation Skills on Incident Occurrence

Objectives A routine nursing task is providing explanations to patients, their families, and other healthcare professionals. Inaccurate explanations can adversely affect the quality of healthcare and patient safety. Despite the significance of good explanatory skills in nursing, supporting empirical data are limited. Therefore, this study aimed to develop a psychological scale and investigate the impact of explanatory skills on incidents. Methods In the preliminary investigation, responses obtained from experienced nurses were analyzed to compile 87 scale items. Study 1 involved an online explanatory skills survey with a sample of 1,000 nursing professionals. Study 2 comprised a field survey involving 159 nursing staff members working in a comprehensive hospital. Results Nine sub-skills were identified and categorized under two factors: “compassion” and “mental model sharing.” Seven of these sub-skills were found to be shared, and the remaining two were specific to interactions with patients/families or healthcare professionals. Clinical ladder progression was associated with both compassion and mental model sharing, whereas years of practical experience was only related to mental model sharing. Furthermore, compassion was identified as a factor that increased the probability of the occurrence of various incidents through interactional failures. In contrast, mental model sharing enhanced the probability of severe incidents stemming from judgmental failures and minor incidents from conceptual failures. Conclusions This study developed a psychological scale to measure nursing professionals’ explanation skills in communication with patients, their families, and other medical staff. It elucidated their impact on incident occurrence through miscommunication. The findings need to be practically verified through fieldwork in nursing education.