Communication competencies of nursing managers: A review study

Introduction: Nursing managers have extensive relationships in the organization and Communication is the key to working processes and relationships to achieve organizational goals; Therefore, nursing managers should be aware of the communication process and communication competencies. Communication competence is a set of knowledge, skills and attitudes that reflect job performance and can be assessed by accepted standards. Methodology: This study is a comprehensive review study that is done by searching Persian articles using the keywords competency, communication competence, nursing managers, in Magiran, Iran Medex, Iranian Research Institute for Information Science (Irandoc) & Scientific databases, and Information Database (SID) from 2009 to 2020 and by searching the keywords Communication competency, Nursing manager, manager of nursing & Nursing management in PubMed, ProQuest, Google scholar, Science Direct, Scopus, Web of Science & Ovid databases from 2009-2020. Results: After receiving the studies according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria and careful review of titles and content, the possibility of accessing the full text and eliminating duplicates, the full text of the remaining 108 articles is carefully examined. Finally, 12 articles (seven English and five Persian studies) are selected. According to the review of studies, six main communication competencies are identified with their examples, which are: 1) Effective communication, 2) Identifying behavioral and personality traits, 3) Active listener, 4) Interaction, 5) Relationship management and 6) Participatory decision making.  Conclusion: According to the studies, communication is one of the most important managerial competencies of nursing managers in all three categories of management (matron, supervisor and head nurse). Therefore, in order to create stronger relationships (strengthen communication), solve communication problems and ensure a healthy work environment, special attention should be paid to training and using communication competencies to determine the quality of relationships and achieve the goals of the organization more effectively.