Exploring People’s Perception of The Impact of Empathy, Effective Communication And Emotional Intelligence Of Nurses On Patient Satisfaction At Private Hospitals In Colombo, Sri Lanka

Abstract

"This study was conducted to explore people’s perception of the impact of empathy, effective communication and emotional intelligence of nurses on patient satisfaction at private hospitals in Colombo, Sri Lanaka. Various theoretical viewpoints of the independent, dependent and mediator variables were examined through the application of theories and models. The positivism philosophy and a deductive approach were used for this study to test the hypotheses and a quantitative analysis was used to evaluate the relationships between the variables. Data gathering comprised of 259 valid respondents using convenience sampling. In addition to the demographics four scales were used to measure the main variables. Data analysis was performed using the SPSS software, testing the normality, validity, correlation, regression and hypothesis. The results also showed that there are positive and significant relationships between empathy and emotional intelligence (R =0.744), between effective communication and patient satisfaction (R =0.874) and between emotional intelligence and patient satisfaction (R = 0.877).Mediation analysis was conducted using Sobel’s test. It concluded Emotional Intelligence mediates the relationship between empathy and patient satisfaction and Emotional Intelligence mediates the relationship between effective communication and patient satisfaction.

Keywords: Empathy, Effective Communication, Emotional Intelligence and Patient Satisfaction"