Examination of the relationship between communication skills and work engagement: A research on health workers in Gümüşhane

This research aims to examine the relationship between communication skills and job commitment of healthcare workers and contribute to the literature through the results obtained from the relevant sample. State hospitals in Gümüşhane province and its districts were determined as the field of application for the research. The research was conducted with 426 healthcare workers (doctors, nurses/midwives, administrative personnel, senior administrative staff, technicians, and others). In the research, quantitative research methods were applied, and the survey method was preferred as the data collection tool, and the surveys were filled out online. The participants were administered surveys that included a demographic information form, an interpersonal communication competence inventory, and the Utrecht work engagement scale. The collected data were analysed using reliability analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analysis, Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal-Wallis H test, and Post-Hoc Tukey test. SPSS 23.0 and Jamovi 2.3 software packages were used for data analysis. The analyses conducted to determine whether there were any differences between demographic variables (age, gender, marital status, education, work experience, position), communication skills and work engagement revealed that there were no statistically significant differences between the communication skills of healthcare workers and their demographic characteristics. However, statistically significant differences were found among the demographic variables regarding work engagement, except for gender. Therefore, as a result of the research, it was determined that there were positive and statistically significant relationships between the communications skills of healthcare workers and their work engagement and its sub-dimensions. This study, aimed to examine the relationship between healthcare workers' communication skills and work engagement, specifically in Gümüşhane province; statistically significant and positive relationships were found between the two variables. The results show that creating necessary work environments to enhance the communication skills of healthcare workers is crucial for affecting their job commitment. Keywords: Communication skills, Work engagement, Healthcare workers.