Communication Behaviors Associated with the Competent Nursing Handoff

Miscommunication between caregivers during a patient handoff—when the responsibility for a patient's care transfers from one caregiver to another—contributes to an estimated 80% of serious errors in patient care. Since 2006, health-care organizations accredited by The Joint Commission have been required to standardize the handoff process to reduce communication errors. This quantitative study identified specific communication behaviors associated with a communicatively competent patient handoff at nursing shift change. Data were collected from 286 nurses responding to an online survey posted at allnurses.com. Results of the multivariate analysis suggested that the best nursing handoffs were those in which both the incoming and the outgoing nurses made frequent use of information exchange (information giving, seeking, and verifying) and socioemotional communication behaviors. These findings provide a foundation for future research into development of communication-based standardized patient handoff processes and training to prevent patient care errors through improved communication competency.