Attitudes towards communication and perceived self-efficacy in nursing students: a longitudinal observational study

Communication is recognised as a critical component of all nursing interventions. For nurses to be able to communicate effectively, they need to develop communication skills during their training. Despite this recognition, there is still a lack of consensus about where and when in the syllabus this content should be covered, and how much time should be devoted to this competence, resulting in a inadequate and inconsistent training. Consequently, students develop negative or positive attitudes towards communication. The aim of this study was to analyse the evolution of attitudes towards communication and perceived self-efficacy in a cohort of undergraduate nursing students.

We conducted a prospective longitudinal observational study with three measurement points. Attitudes towards communication and self-efficacy were measured until the 2022-2023 academic year.

Participants included 131 undergraduate nursing students with a mean age of 20.44 years (SD = 6.08). The scores for attitudes towards communication were not linear. Baseline scores were higher than those recorded at the second assessment, and then scores increased again after the training. Scores for perceived self-efficacy increased progressively over the course of the training programme.

Attitudes towards communication and perceived self-efficacy do not intrinsically improve with age, course progression or clinical experience. When specific training in communication skills is not provided, students perceive their communication skills to be moderate and regard communication as a clinical competence of limited relevance . However, after receiving specific person-centred training in their final year, students perceived their ability to be highly in what is a very relevant competence in the healthcare context.