Introduction: every day new obstacles arise in the exchange of information that takes place in the interaction process between supervisors and nursing staff, which may negatively affect good clinical practice.
Objectives: to learn about the motivation of nursing professionals and existing communication channels.
Methodology: cross-sectional descriptive study. Population: Ramón y Cajal Hospital (Madrid) nurses from the hospitalization area. Instrument: Self-designed questionnaire comprised of 22 closed questions and one open question. Analyzed variables: sociodemographic, work-related, motivation in communication, communication channels and improvement proposals.
Results: 107 questionnaires were completed (82,9%). Nurses consider receiving information related to their professional practice very important. The bulletin board is the most frequently used information exhange channel. Nurses claim it is harder to receive information through computer channels (computerised data) and that a lot of information arrives in the form of rumours or worse still gossip. Nurses suggest increasing the number of meetings and having all the information conveyed in writing.
Conclusions: managers are key to information management so communication can be as efficient as possible.