The correlation of communication skills and emotional expressions among nursing students in Turkey: A public university sample

Abstract

Background & Aim: Expressing emotions is very important both in interpersonal relationships and in the protection and maintenance of the individual's mental health. However, the individual must have certain skills to express his feelings healthily. The most important of these is communication skills. This research aimed to examine the correlation between communication skills and emotional expressions of nursing students. Methods & Materials: This correlational study was conducted among nursing students at a public university faculty of nursing in Turkey between 2016 and 2017. Of the total of 1423 students, 632 nursing students were selected using the convenience sampling method. The Introductory Information Form, the Berkeley Expressivity Questionnaire, and the Communication Skills Scale were used to collect data. The Mann-Whitney U, Kruskal-Wallis H, and Pearson correlation tests were used for the analysis of the data. Results: The mean total Berkeley Expressivity Questionnaire score of the students was found to be 79.45±10.11, and the mean total score of the Communication Skills Scale was 97.67±11.20. Emotional expressions are affected by gender, marital status, class, income level, family structure, the residence where they have lived the longest, place of residence, and working status (p≤0.05, p<0.01). It was found that there was a positive-directed correlation between students' emotional expressions and communication skills (p<0.01). Conclusion: It was concluded that communication skills and some sociodemographic characteristics of nursing students are correlated with their emotional expressions.