Evaluation of Nursing Handoff Skill among Nurses Using Situation-background-assessment-recommendation Checklist in General Wards

Patient's clinical handoff which is a critical organizational and clinical process is considered one of the fundamental responsibilities of nurses. In this regard, lack of tools and resources to be applied for this purpose threatens the life of patients. The present study aimed to investigate the nursing handoff skill among nurses using situation-background-assessment-recommendationquestionnaire. This observational research was carried out on 64 nurses in internal and surgical wards in selected hospitals affiliated to Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Tehran, Iran in 2018. The research population included the content of reports related to nursing handoff of nurses working in the hospitals. The reliability and validity of the questionnaire were confirmed, and descriptive statistics were applied to evaluate the data. It is worthy to note that the majority of participants were female (68.8%). After the evaluation, patient information was reported in areas of current situation (90.0%), clinical background (10.0%), assessment of systems’ status (57.5%), and recommendations (92.5%). Based on the results of the study, less attention was paid to mentioning clinical background and assessing patients’ systems during nursing handoff, which necessitates the training courses on accurate reporting for nurses to ensure patient safety.