Abstract
Background: Attitudes toward the communication of nurses and nursing students with patients can influence the health outcomes of their patients. The present study aimed to develop and validate an abbreviated form of the Attitudes Toward Communication (ACO) scale for nurses and nursing students. Methods: Two types of participants were included in this study, 385 nurses and 1408 nursing students (67.30% of the nurses and 82.10% of the students were women). After obtaining their informed consent. Attitudes toward communication (ACO) of nurses and nursing students with patients were evaluated. Results: Internal consistency and construct validity analyses were conducted. A 12-item instrument (ACO-R) was obtained that maintained the factorial structure and ensured the homogeneous distribution of items in the different subscales. The same solution was found for both samples. Conclusions: The instrument showed adequate internal consistency and validity indices. The ACO-R instrument is an efficient, valid, and reliable measure to assess ACO among nursing students and nurses.