Reflective Account on the Importance of Non Verbal Communication in an Acute Setting

Reflecting on the situation that had taken place during my second placement working in the community. This will give me the perfect opportunity to develop and utilise my commutation skills in order to maintain the relationships with my patient. In this reflection, I am going to use Gibbs (1988) Reflective Cycle. This model is a recognised framework for my reflection. Gibbs (1988). Baird and Winter (2005,) give some reasons why reflection is require in the reflective practice. They state that a reflect is to generate the practice knowledge, assist an ability to adapt new situations, develop self-esteem and satisfaction as well as to value, develop and professionalizing practice. However, Siviter (2004)

I will now discuss how I was thinking and feeling during this event. I had been working at the hospice for over a year and had looked after patients with MND before. I had an idea of how it can affect communicating with the patient. I was apprehensive about approaching Patient A as I didn’t know what difficulties I may find whilst trying to communicate with her. She was able to communicate very well using the pen and writing down, and using hand gestures. I learnt that by speaking clearly with easy to answer questions we were able to communicate with each other effectively. Afterwards I felt pleased that were able to determine the problem and find a solution for her, despite the communication barriers.

This is essay is going to be based on the importance of communication within the broader context of health and social care, it will give you a definitive insight to different communication techniques, such as verbal and non-verbal communication. Within this essay I will also discuss how important effective communication can be and the barriers that can restrict the care practitioner from doing his/her job effectively by using communication as the main tool. Furthermore how personal beliefs and values need to be taken in to consideration and the effect it may have on a service user in the light of working professionally.

Reflection is a process of exploring and examining ourselves, our perspectives, attributes, experiences and actions / interactions. It helps us gain insight and see how to move forward (Nursing Times 2018). I believe reflection is particularly important when it comes to Nursing, as medicine is constantly changing/ improving and us ourselves medical professionals must adapt with the changes in medicine. I find that reflection is extremely useful in doing this as we can look over procedures or experiences that we have had, how that made us feel, whether we would change anything, then in the future we can see the changes that may have been made, whether this has changed our feelings and opinions on medical practice.

Reflective practice in nursing is the process where we examine our nursing ability’s and practice in order to critically think and analyze the way we work and think about the views of others in our practice, what we could have done and we could have achieved a greater result by doing this also allows us as nurses to include best practice and use our own judgment in patient care to show the factors that either aid and hinder nurse to patient relationship. (Lowenstein, Bradshaw and Fuszard, 2001) described reflecting in nursing practice “the nurse must first come to understand what he or she defines as ideal practice”.

I will use a reflective model to discuss how I have achieved the necessary level of competence in my nurse training programme. The reflective model I have chosen to use is Gibbs model (Gibbs 1988). Gibbs model of reflection incorporates the following: description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and an action plan (Gibbs 1988). The model will be applied to the essay to facilitate critical thought, relating theory to practice where the model allows. Discussion will include the knowledge underpinning practice and the evidence base for the clinical skill. A conclusion to the essay will

There is a need to identify the level and type of support an individual requires when eating and drinking. Any support while eating or drinking is to be provided respecting the service user’s human dignity, while the carer is exhibiting warmth and a calm attitude. The care plan informs whether the service user is able to feed him/herself, or needs assistance. Many service users will feed themselves when starting their meal, but will get tired and will then require assistance. The hands of service users with Parkinson’s may have to be gently directed so that they manage eating independently. The carer may need to cut the food for the service user. Service users with chewing difficulties, or swallowing precautions, or a history of choking need to be supervised while eating. Of course, these service users will also get a soft diet. Service users living with dementia may reject food which to them resembles to gruesome things (e.g., they may think meat bits in a dark sauce are cocroaches), therefore person-centered support is important. Service users with learning disabilities may find it hard to estimate distances, so the carer will make sure plates and glasses are well within their reach.

During my clinical placement, I have done the nursing standard 2 which is engaging in therapeutic and professional relationships. An example of one event in my placement where I have done this standard is when doing interviews in my two-week community placement at the Community Rehabilitation in Armadale Hospital. For my reflection, I will be using the Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle (1988).

Gustaffson and Fagerberg point out that reflective practice has relevance for clinical practice as by understanding the contents of nurses’ reflections, it is also possible to understand the advantages of reflective practice and how and when such measures should be used by the nurses for further professional development.

This reflection was done using the Gibbs reflective cycle. It has six steps including Description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and finally the action plan. The description section is an introduction to the contents of the reflection, ensuring the reader gets a foundational understanding of the materials. In the Feelings section, I can discuss how I felt about an incident/activity that occurred. The evaluation section allows me to assess the positives/negatives of the way I handled the situation. Then the analysis section is for me to consider steps I could take starting from now that allow me to improve. The conclusion section is for me to bring all the elements of the reflection together. Finally, the Action Plan section is there for me to decide what I would like to do in the future.

For the purpose of this essay, I have selected Gibbs (1988) Reflective Learning Cycle to reflect on an aspect of individual professional practice, which requires development in preparation for my role as a Registered Nurse. Gibbs (1988) Model of Reflection provides a clear description of a situation, analysis of feelings, evaluation of the experience, conclusion, and action plan to make sense of the experience to examine what you would do if the situation happens again.

In recent years, reflection and reflective practice have become well-known term with in the health care arena. They are words that have been debated and discussed with in the health care setting (Tony and Sue 2006). Reflective practice is essential for nurses, as nurses are responsible for providing care to the best of their ability to patients and their families (NMC, 2008). Reid (1993) states reflection is a process of reviewing an experience of practice in order to describe, analyse, evaluate and so inform learning about practice. Johns (1995) notes that reflection enables practitioners to assess, understand and learn through their experience. Reflective practice, therefore, offers nurses an opportunity to review their decisions and

As I had approached to Peter at the nurses’ bay, I had relaxed my posture and sat down at a lower angle and had my arms and legs uncrossed, hoping to feel less intimidating. When I had introduced myself, I had made full eye contact and greeted him with a hand shake. This clearly fulfills the acronym SURETY, a process of reading body language. This consists of – sitting at an angle, uncrossing arms and legs, relaxing, eye contact, touch, and your intuition (Stickley, T. 2011).

Schon (1987) identified two types of reflection that could be applied in the nursing practice. He described “refection-on-action” that involves assessing and analyzing an action while performing the action and “reflection-in-action” which involves going back to previous actions and situations and analyzing them to gain new insights and to improve the nursing practice (Schon 1987). Schon further argued that for reflection to take place there should be a commitment to action as there is to results. Coined in 1970, Borton’s theory on the other hand, proposes the use of three stem questions in the reflective practice (Borton, 1970). These questions were originally proposed by John Driscoll who described the experiential learning cycle (Driscoll, 1994) where practitioners are able to learn from their experiences to improve their practice. According to Driscoll (1970) these trigger questions could be used to complete the experiential learning cycle leading to a practitioner gaining new information and insights on how to improve their practice (Driscoll, 1994). The importance of Driscoll’s three stem questions in improving practice reflection among nurses cannot be underestimated. By answering these stem questions, nurses develop a better insight into the situation regarding how and why it occurred and identifies the next courses of action in case the situation recurs.

Personal reflection in nursing is essential and critical as it allows for continuous development and re-assessment of skills whilst working within a health care setting (Reflective practice: a tool to enhance professional practice 2011, pp.1-3). Personal reflection is important as reflective practice allows for the ability for one to reflect and examine their actions and experiences which overall will increase and enhance their clinical knowledge, as well as developing and improving their practice (Reflective practice: a tool to