Background: Communication competence among nurses is essential to ensure patient safety, reduce medical
errors and deliver high quality of care. As well as, quality handoff is an integral component of communication
competence in health care. Aim: Explore nurses' communication competence of handoff and its relation to quality of
handoff reports at Fakous central hospital. Method: Descriptive cross sectional design was utilized, included (151)
nurses (incoming nurses (76) and outgoing nurses (75) working at Fakous central hospital. Data was collected by using
two tools:-Nurse Communication Competence Scale, and Manser Handover Quality Rating Tool. Results: The
incoming and outgoing nurses had the highest level of communication competence than their (counterpart) peers. There
is no statistical significant difference among level of handoff quality between incoming versus outgoing nurses; more
than half of the total nurses had good perception toward handoff quality levels. There was highly statistically significant
positive correlation between total and all dimensions of communication competence during handoff and total, and all
dimensions of quality of handoff report among incoming nurses, and outgoing nurses. Conclusion: Communication
competence during handoff affects positively the quality of handoff report among incoming and outgoing nurses.
Recommendations: Creating work environments that encourage communication competence, place policy that
commitment to handoff standard and training nurses on the policy, and make form as checklist contain elements of
handoff and communication.