Appropriate Interpersonal Communication In Health And Social Care

People communicate in order to establish and maintain relationships with others, to give and receive info and instructions, to understand and be understood, to share opinions, knowledge, feelings, and emotions, to give encouragement and show others they are valued. Communication is an essential tool a carer can use to meet the needs of people. It is the basic requirement of the job role to communicate with individuals and staff members on a daily basis. Communicating with other staff members ensures effective team working and continuity of care. It also ensures any health and safety issues and recognised and reported.

Professional communication as defined by Crisp, Taylor, Douglas & Rebeiro, 2013, p194 includes the spoken and non-verbal forms of communication. When a nurse doesn’t communicate professionally with the patients, patients family and healthcare workers this can have an impact on the patients’ care, the nurses and the health outcomes for the patient (Robinson, F.P, 2010, p206). Unprofessional communication comes in the form of an unfriendly tone of voice, interrupting the patient when they are speaking or asking questions (Kourkouta & Papathanasiou, 2014 p66). Both of these are spoken forms of communication. Nonverbal cues are primarily about facial expressions. Interrupting and speaking

The different reason people communicate is to show pain, anger, joy, love etc. It is important for people communicate so their views, wishes and information gets across. The communication could be formal or informal. Documentation and record keeping is important in the social care sector as this information may be used for legal reasons. All communications is confidential and are on a “need to know” basis. Communication between colleagues and other healthcare professionals is essential, as it ensures continuity of care. It also shows staff are aware of the current needs of the client.

By observing us children learn how to interact with others, accomplish goals, and get along in the world. We are the examples, and what many do not realize is that our non-verbal messages and actions are stronger than our verbal ones. Non-verbal communication consists of expressions, tone of voice, eye contact, and actions.  The way you listen, look, move, and react tells the other person whether or not you care, if you’re being truthful, and how well you’re listening. When your nonverbal signals match up with the words you’re saying, they increase trust, clarity, and rapport. When they don’t, they generate tension, mistrust, and confusion. There are many different types of nonverbal communication. Together, the following nonverbal signals and cues communicate your interest and investment in others.

Non-verbal communication is very important and is often more important than verbal communication. This consists of eye contact, hand and body language and facial expressions.

Nonverbal communication or body language makes up 55% of effective communication. This plays the biggest part in communication, and it shows the client or colleague more information than words alone ever could. Nonverbal communication includes facial expressions, body movement and gestures, head movements, eye contact, posture, and the use of distances and space. Understanding and using nonverbal communication can enhance the connection between you and others, navigate challenging situations and well as expressing interest in the conversation. this can also established effective rapport between you and the client or colleague.

There are many differing ideas on the best way to communicate in health and social care and there are many strategies used by the many differing professionals working in health and social care. This assignment will review the different strategies used and then will evaluate the differing strategies and their effectiveness when overcoming barriers to effective communication and interpersonal interactions.

Communication is highly important, especially in an elderly care setting. It is useful in many different ways and situations, for example; if the service user had vision impairments, it is important that the professional speaks loud and clearly pronunciating properly however is not patronising in any way making the service user feel uncomfortable. This gets important information, such as changes to medication, across clearly to the service user without them feeling uncomfortable or unaware.

A plan that could be used to clarify a misunderstanding would be if a service user could not understand ones line of questioning, pictures could be used to combat this if the misunderstanding was still apparent after using this method one could resort to writing down the question and asking it slowly and clearly so that all parties understand what is being asked or requested.

Non-verbal communication | 1. Posture. This is the way in which someone holds their self, the way the stand etc. 2. Facial expression. This is the way someone’s face responds to an action or words. For e.g.…if someone was told something they like they would generally be wide eyed and smiling. |

People from different background use and interpret communication method in different ways. Ethnicity and background influence how we use communication and our understanding to it. Many factors such as culture, age, gender dialect can determined our interaction with others because English may not be their language, culture can play a major role on how we communicate with people. In some culture for instance, it is not acceptable to give direct eye contact to an elderly person when they are communicating with you. However, in some culture not giving eye contact will be term as being rude. Also, different people from different background

M1 Assess the roles of effective communication and interpersonal interactions in health and social care with reference to theories of communication

In this essay I will be analysing effective communication and reflecting on a personal situation that demonstrates this within a health and social care setting. There are many different types of communication, verbal, non-verbal, formal, informal, written and it can be shown through your tone of voice, thorough your facial expression, as well as the through your body language. The official definition of communication according to Oxford Learning Dictionary is, “the activity or process of expressing ideas and feelings or of giving people information” and I will be using the Gibbs reflective tool (1988) and its 6 stages as the frame work to break down the incident I was involved in and compare it to the

Evaluating the strategies used in health and social care environments to overcome barriers to effective communication and interpersonal interactions.

Non-verbal communication is used to give us cues about what is being communicated (Underman and Boggs, 2011) and involves listening, eye contact, body language, facial expressions and movements. Posture can be open or closed reflecting a person’s emotions and attitudes (skillsyouneed, 2014). Listening can create trust, act as an advocate and build a therapeutic rapport with the patient. Barriers to listening are a noisy environment, tone of voice, timing and tiredness. Kinesics (body language) is an important non-verbal skill that involves the conscious or unconscious body positioning or actions of the communicator (Underman and Boggs, 2011). Following the SOLER guideline is useful. S- Sit squarely to the person (face them). O- Maintain an open position, L- Lean slightly forward, E- Maintain comfortable eye contact and R- Relax and take your time (Egan, 2002).