Communication skills of heads of departments: verbal, listening, and feedback skills.

BACKGROUND Managers' communication skills are one of the most important topics in educational sector of universities of medical sciences and may have considerable effect on faculty members and employees. This study was per-formed to determine the level of communication skills (verbal, listening, feed-back) of the heads of department of faculties and its relation with some demo-graphic variables. METHODS This cross-sectional study was conducted from June 2009 to January 2010. We enrolled all of the heads of departments (N=60) in Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, western Iran. The participants received a self-administered 24-item questionnaire in Likert format (six general items and 18 items related to communication skills). Data were analyzed with SPSS software using Chi-square and Fisher's exact tests. RESULTS The average scores of verbal, listening and feedback communication were 22.5, 16.1 and 21.1, respectively. Accordingly, 78.3% of participants in verbal communication, 16.7% in listening communication and 73.3% in feedback communication had high status. There were significant differences between the average score of listening skills and age (P=0.013) as well as gender (P=0.042). In addition, there was a significant statistical difference between verbal skills and gender (P=0.021). CONCLUSION The overall communication skills of more than half of the heads of departments were moderate. This needs designing some programs for improving department managers' communication skills.