Meaning and Importance of Communication in Nursing Practices
The essay brings about the discussion on the nursing concepts and practices, which includes the assessment of the health, illness, and health promotion for the individuals in the society. To discuss about the nursing concepts and the role it plays within society, it is first essential to understand the concepts and practices related to nursing or healthcare. Nursing refers to the profession within the healthcare sector that undertakes the responsibility of providing care to the individuals to help them maintain and recover the health and quality of life. Therefore, the essay will describe the importance of effective or therapeutic communication, essential to attain skills to ensure effective care and treatment to the patients. In addition, the essay will enlist the impact of communication on the health of the patient (MacLean et al., 2017). The thesis statement for this essay is “Nurses or health professionals can attain positive health outcomes for the patients through effective communication within healthcare” . Thus, the report will mention the concept of therapeutic communication and the leading positive influence on the health of the individuals.
Leading on to the discussion over the topic, the essay will describe meaning and importance of communication in the nursing practices. The aspect of communication in healthcare is considered important tool for the health professionals and nurses to ensure health services and improving the patient satisfaction. Moreover, communication in the healthcare has a personal effect on the patients and other clients, depending on the manner the communication process carried amongst them. In fact, to state about the process of communication, it is not only a skill, and neither it in uni-directional rather it is determined as the interaction between the sender and receiver of the information or important messages during the process i.e. from both nurse/health professional and patient (Foronda, MacWilliams & McArthur, 2016).
A nurse in a healthcare setting requires effective skills of communication to develop a healthy relationship which include skills, flexibility, enhance listening ability, do not make assumptions, understanding cultural differences, strengthen writing skills, and becoming assertive or positive towards bringing change to the health condition of the patient.
According to some researchers, it has been analysed that the overall content of the work and action of the nurses in the society and health system is largely the outcome of the effectiveness of communication between nurses and external environment. This is further associated to the process of therapeutic communication through which nurses consciously influences the patients and helps them understand treatment through verbal and non-verbal communication (Kurtz, Draper & Silverman, 2016).
Essential Skills for Nurses in Healthcare
Communication is one of the basic nursing competencies as the profession of nursing is complex therefore; nurses need to adopt effective communication skills and attributes to attain positive health outcomes. Besides, the process of communication is imperative for attaining optimal patient care and preventing errors, within healthcare settings in consideration to the treatment. Hence, from the above discussion it is clear that effective communication is the core concept or aspect as the nursing roles, for the attainment of successful outcome of individualized care of the patient (Gluyas, 2015).
Effective communication is a core skill that nurses need to provide care to the patient and the quality of communication in the interactions amongst the patient and nurses leads to an influence on the health of patient. Therefore, for a nurse, the ability to communicate is an important skill and vital to perform best out of their job roles. Development of communication skills by nurses in healthcare supported through practising interacting with people or patient with varying cultural, educational, and social backgrounds, to attain the level of efficiency (Bramhall, 2014).
Rosenberg and Gallo-Silver (2011) were of the view that a nurse working in a healthcare, at any level such as primary, secondary or tertiary needs to apply competencies in the area of pedagogy. Nowadays, hospitals or healthcare focused on the enhanced care of their patients; however, it is more important to establish a direct contact between the nurse and patients. It is necessary because of the fact it helps in attaining personal contact and feedback from their service delivery or treatment methods used within health setting.
A study revealed that absence of communication or poor communication led to negative health outcomes. This consists of the negative results such as discontinuity of care, compromising patient health and safety, patient dissatisfaction and inefficient use of valuable resources. Therefore, analysing the above section communication has been the driving force of success of the nursing practices. In this context, the written communication form has emphasized, as well as their impact of the inefficiency of communication and the recommendations to improve the written communication within healthcare. The most useful and common form of written communication, used in the healthcare are the referral and discharge letters. For an instance, a nurse with effective skills of communication will be able to obtain request for specific assessment or treatment of the patient. This will be done if the nurse communicates the rationale and aspects of the use of specific method of treatment for the patient (Kourkouta & Papathanasiou, 2014).
The Significance of Therapeutic Communication in Healthcare
The aspects of effective or therapeutic communication determine foundation for the success of patient treatment and care plan designed by health professionals. Now, the purpose of the descriptive essay is to explain the various forms of communication used with the patients and their impacts on the patient care, along with significance of process. The communication methods used in the healthcare includes listening & attending (includes patient/family complaints), non-verbal, verbal, questioning, and written. Non-verbal communication is also termed as ‘body-language’, which plays a vital role in determining the impact or changes in the health state of the patient (Riley, 2015).
For an instance, the use of non-verbal communication will be most beneficial at times when the patient is scared or feeling pain or discomfort, or facing difficulty-speaking things. Thus, important aspects of body language, or examining the posture, making facial expressions and eye contact to the patient will help in analysing their needs and experiences or issues in consideration to the treatment provided to them. Similarly, written communication is important in the healthcare for both, the patient and the health professionals, staff and nurses. It will help to maintain the record of care and treatment, or care plan designed and provided to the patient for any further use. Additionally, it makes sure about the availability of the staff in the hospital, irrespective of the case, patient care ensured 24/7 as per the requirement of the patient. In this way, quality in healthcare services are provided to the patients by practising effective forms of communication, inclusive of the therapeutic communication which enhances the levels of health of the patients (Rosenburg & Galo-Silver, 2011).
The research mentioned that there is a strong and inherent relationship between the healthcare quality and the nurse-patient relationship within healthcare. At the same time, lack of communication amongst them will negatively influence the health services provided to the patients. Consequently, the interaction or process of communication between the two, i.e. patient and nurse lasts to the treatment as therapeutic relationship between them. After analysing above listed types of communication, the aspect of therapeutic communication has found the most suitable in healthcare (Abdolrahimi et al., 2017).
Effective communication is the basic ingredient of the nurse-patient relationship, and one of the important aspects is therapeutic communication, which engages nurses to plan patient care. On this account, communication is the core foundation of the nursing practices, will be explored through this descriptive essay. Therapeutic alliance or relationship can be defined as the face-to-face interaction that focuses on the improvement of the physical and emotional wellbeing of an individual. Nurses or professionals provide technical support and information to the patients regarding their treatment using therapeutic communication (Vermeir et al., 2015).
Types of Communication and Their Impacts on Patient Care
The examples of therapeutic communication includes some form of non-verbal communication, which includes eye contact, silence in active listening of the patient. The attributes of the therapeutic alliance includes listening to the patient non-verbally, nodding, and the phrases involving verbal communication. Thus, the major objective or goal of therapeutic communication in nursing involves attainment of patient’s health and wellbeing in all the respect through the components of trust, respect, genuine interest, and empathy (Mistiaen et al., 2016).
From the aforementioned discussion, the meaning, relevance of the therapeutic communication understood in context to the nursing practices. Now, the discussion will determine the significance of therapeutic communication to the health professionals. A successful therapeutic relationship between the nurses and patients depends on the factors of communication, trust, and understanding of the issues and other related aspects of treatment.
However, low levels of effective communication or absence of therapeutic communication may lead to problems such as misdiagnosis, anxiety, misunderstanding, possibility of maltreatment, exposure to further complications leading to the increases length of the hospital stay that creates dissatisfaction. Thus practising effective therapeutic communication process within healthcare is the key to patient recovery and wellbeing (Oh et al., 2015).
Conclusion
To conclude the above discussion it can be stated that the communication in the health care contributes vital to the patient safety, and health. The aspect of effective communication is essential for the nurse, and other health professionals to be acquired to attain positive results. Thus, concept of therapeutic communication is holistic and patient-centred, and involves the totality of the actual condition of the patient. Therefore, the role of therapeutic communication has identified as crucial component that develops a positive clinician-patient experience. Hence, to summarise it states that nurses/health professionals must act, and respond effectively to the needs of the patients and ensure them best treatment recovery of their health condition.
References
Abdolrahimi, M., Ghiyasvandian, S., Zakerimoghadam, M. & Ebadi, A. (2017). Therapeutic communication in nursing students: A Walker & Avant concept analysis. Electronic physician, 9(8), 4968.
Bramhall, E (2014) Effective communication skills in nursing practice. Nursing Standard 29, (14), 53-59.
Foronda, C., MacWilliams, B. & McArthur, E. (2016). Inter-professional communication in healthcare: an integrative review. Nurse education in practice, 19, 36-40.
Gluyas, H. (2015). Effective communication and teamwork promotes patient safety. Nursing Standard (2014), 29(49), 50.
Kourkouta, L. & Papathanasiou, I. V. (2014). Communication in nursing practice. Materia socio-medica, 26(1), 65.
Kurtz, S., Draper, J. & Silverman, J. (2016). Skills for communicating with patients. United States: CRC Press.
MacLean, S., Kelly, M., Geddes, F. & Della, P. (2017). Use of simulated patients to develop communication skills in nursing education: An integrative review. Nurse education today, 48, 90-98.
Mistiaen, P., Van Osch, M., Van Vliet, L., Howick, J., Bishop, F. L., Di Blasi, Z. & Van Dulmen, S. (2016). The effect of patient–practitioner communication on pain: a systematic review. European Journal of Pain, 20(5), 675-688.
Oh, E. J., Ko, S. H., Kim, J. Y. & Kim, S. R. (2015). Self-awareness, other-awareness, and communication ability in nursing students. Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration, 21(4), 426-434.
Riley, J. B. (2015). Communication in nursing. United States: Elsevier Health Sciences.
Rosenburg, S., Gallo-Silver, L. (2011) Therapeutic communication skills and student nurse in the clinical setting. Teaching and Learning in Nursing 6, 2-8.
Vermeir, P., Vandijck, D., Degroote, S., Peleman, R., Verhaeghe, R., Mortier, E. & Vogelaers, D. (2015). Communication in healthcare: a narrative review of the literature and practical recommendations. International journal of clinical practice, 69(11), 1257-1267.
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