Therapeutic Communication With Patients

Communication is all around us. It’s the way we interact with each other in everyday living. Our senses have a lot to do with the way we receive communication, and even if a sense is impaired there are still ways to get the idea across to people.

I have seen the nursing process being used within my practice. The society that I go to for my clinical evaluations and regular charting for every resident in the house. They identity daily, short-term, and long-term goals. Every resident has a chart that the need to fill out, by doing this it allows the residents have some accountability on their part of the goals. In addition, the nurses also observe that the residents progress, these observations are done throughout the day and charted daily. Being in the practice setting for a few weeks now, I’ve had the opportunity to use nursing processes with a few residents. I worked with a resident to help them understand and communicate with the staff members about how this resident was feeling. I worked with this resident to prepare and brainstorm ways that they could approach and deal with the issue. Helping them understand that feeling

A few therapeutic techniques that a health care professional can use to communicate better are: 1. Justify the patient’s response to clearly understand their perception and beliefs. 2. Always be accepting of the patient even if you do not fully understand their background; be open. 3. Learn how to transform the patient’s feelings into thoughts and vice versa. If individuals in the health care field do not use this technique then they can create difficulties by using non-therapeutic communication; there are various ways to avoid non-therapeutic communication. A few examples to help improve non-therapeutic communication are avoid questions that are irrelevant to personal life, giving the patient your personal opinion or showing criticism towards the patients opinion. Another way to avoid therapeutic communication is using the term “why”. This will give off reassurance to the patient from the health care provider the patient will then become defensive. Make sure that you fully understand the patient’s feelings instead of jumping to conclusions on how the patient must feel; steer clear of the comments that you may make to the patient that could reveal your feelings because these do not matter to the patient and you do not want to lose the

Another non-verbal communication skill that I learned to use effectively was silence as it gave both the patient and the nurse time to reflect upon previous or future events in the patient’s care, although it is important to ensure that the patient’s needs are still met and that the focus is still on them. Therefore it is important that the nurse involves the patient through other means of communication.

Therapeutic communication is the basis to maintain a proper nurse patient relationship. Furthermore, understanding that therapeutic communication which is so vital, patient’s literacy level is also crucial in the communication process. Boykins D., 2014 states that “individuals that experience health literacy problems receive less preventative care and have poor understanding of health problems and care”. A nurse assesses each patients’ literacy level upon their first interaction, she also uses therapeutic communication to build a strong nurse patient relationship. Therapeutic communication can be verbal and nonverbal, both equally important to help build a bridge for communication. An example of nonverbal therapeutic communication would be silence; in some cultures, silence is a norm and a way of thinking. With a precise assessment and proper

In nursing verbal communication is used on a daily basis. It is simply the transferring of in-formation through speech. When talking to patients, relatives or other staff members you are using verbal communication. In order for the needs of the patient to be met, effective com-munication needs to take place, both between the nurse and the patient but also the nurse and other members of the team. Nurses must ensure that what they say is clear, honest, accurate and suitable for the patients, age, personal beliefs, language, cultural, and they should also take into consideration the level of understanding. (Royal College of Nursing, 2015).

As a nurse, communication is an essential and important factor to building a therapeutic relationship between a nurse and patient as it is the difference between average and excellent nursing care, as it helps maintain a good quality of life and allows nurses’ and patients to interact and provide comfort when needed. The importance of good communication can become apparent with patients especially when they are in the hospital, as it helps the nurses build a positive relationship with patients and helps overcome barriers including physical, psychological and social. A therapeutic relationship is built on many factors which include both verbal and non-verbal communication which helps maintains the relationship and strengthens it due to the positive impact it has not only on the patient’s experience but also the nurse’s.

Therapeutic communication is considered the heart of family nursing practice (Deane, & Fain, 2016). Knowing the different types of communication is vital for nurses, as it delivers an effective relationship between nurse-client affiliation. Effective therapeutic communication is the main key to success.

The HITECH act of 2009 brought about the revolution of health information technology (HIT) by providing billions of dollars to aid in implementation throughout the health care industry. HIT has allowed for improved patient-centered care secondary to improvement in communication channels, allowing for greater access of protected health information (PHI) for healthcare providers, which in turns, has improved the efficiency of patient care. Patient centered communication has been achieved through means of patient portals and electronic health records (EHR). EHR connects various disciplines and aids interdisciplinary communication. Furthermore, HIT such as telemedicine and clinical decision support systems allow for improve communication of health information between provider and patient, allowing for better patient care delivery (Finney et al., 2014).

Empathy is a vital ingredient of supportive relationships. A lot of scholars argued that empathy furnishes health care professionals with the capacity to improve patient’s health ,thus it must be taught to make them more responsive to patient’s health [ Journal article: Developing Empathy in Nursing students:A cohort longhitudinal study page 1]

Achieving the goal as a successful nurse is not easy as it requires not only a broad knowledge but also clinical skills (Raya 2006). One of the crucial factors leading to that is learning to create therapeutic relationships between health care professionals and patients through professional communication. This is long-term training since nurses must know how to apply different communication methods to help their patients with kindness and sincerity (Varcarolis 2005). The purpose of this study is to assess knowledge of how diversified communication types are used and their efficiency in building a therapeutic relationship.

Therapeutic communication is a new approach to nursing care in which the work center is the patient, his narrative (what he says and how he says it), his experience of the disease. Therapeutic communication is a way for the nursing professional to see their role with the patient as a framework for knowing how to be in the helping relationship. It is more than communicating with the patient within the professional role of nursing, it is the basis of nursing. For any care or intervention, the main thing is to establish and maintain a relationship of help that is effective and therapeutic at all times.

The set up was similar to my clinical routine. On entering the room, my teammates and I greeted her and asked her how she was doing. She was alert and oriented. She sounded exhausted. She was having generalized pain. I asked her if she was feeling short of breath she said “no.” She was already on 3L of oxygen through nasal cannula with an oxygen saturation of 93%. Her skin was warm to touch and her pulse bounding. She had crackles throughout her lung field. During my clinicals, I learned to link my patient’s assessment findings to her labs and orders. I also practiced using the SBAR to contact the physician. I attended an interdisciplinary round at the oncology unit where the team was planning palliative care for a patient. I noticed that the team was more directed towards pain management and therapeutic interventions. The team also made sure to include the family and the patient in the care. During the simulation, we contacted the doctor for an order of morphine.

Effective communication is of tantamount importance in the scope of a successful nursing practice. It depends heavily upon both verbal and non-verbal methods (AJN). It is inclusive of both behavioral and speech components. Being efficient in both delivering and receiving messages between the nurse and the patient helps initiate and maintain a healthy relationship. Employing both verbal and non-verbal communication between the nurse and the patient will help ensure that the relationship they share remains satisfying to both parties.

Therapeutic Communication has a huge impact on patients, whether, we, as nurses, see it or not. It is very important for a nurse to gain a patient’s trust. Many patients are already filled with sadness, nervousness and unsure thoughts of their current situation. Such thoughts may make a person scared to trust or open up to a nurse or doctor. Developing a close rapport with a patient can help to create a safe, warming environment, resulting in a positive experience throughout their time in the hospital or even nursing home. In “Therapeutic Communication”, Anna Lauria opens saying, “What we say or do not say can influence whether a client is able to quiet his mind, relax his body and initiate a healing response” (Lauria). Being a nurse, we automatically have the opportunity to create a strong influence on patients’ lives during, and even after, their hospital experience.