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The Importance of Effective Communication in Nursing Practice

1. Introduction to Communication in Nursing

In this case, effective communication between health professionals and clients will be crucial to prevent errors. In practice, nurse communication is inseparably related to diagnostic thinking for nursing and therapeutic nursing, which implies that nursing should also have good communication skills. Effective communication and a good nurse-patient relationship are part of a good nurse and care that a patient values. On the other hand, communication is exposed and can make patients feel valued and satisfied. It is by communicating with the patient/client that the nurse assesses and identifies the needs/problems of the client and makes the planning of nursing care, considering the actual or potential strengths and resources of the client, determining the objectives with the client himself and establishing criteria for evaluation and the methodology to be implemented and make decisions in nursing care improvement.

Communication is a vital element in nursing in all areas of activity and in all its interventions such as prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, care or support. Our work involves communication. Conversations or interactions between nurses and patients are aimed to promote health, improve the patient’s compliance, promote behavior change, encourage self-care, provide information, teach, show affection, relieve feelings, show support, assist in decision making. So, you are constantly engaging with the patient, being a good communicator and empowering the patient through communication to be actively involved in the achievement of better health results consistent with their expectations and aspirations and in accordance with their wishes, beliefs, and values. So, nursing is interaction; good professional nursing requires a high level of interpersonal competence. Thus, communication often determines the resulting health benefits.

2. Barriers to Effective Communication in Nursing

Providing therapeutic listening and empathy is a very difficult task, and not at all a matter of great skills. Furthermore, nurses are human and have their own needs; they may not have sufficient inner resources to tolerate the amount of emotion displayed by the patient at any given time. Indeed, the nurse’s personal needs and stresses increase attitudes “deniability” of the patient’s emotional needs in communication. Nurse anxiety has also been identified as a blockage to empathy and technique that operates within the communication process to distort or co-optate the messages so that the nurse and her patients cannot exchange information, thoughts, feelings, intentions, needs, and desires. For example, if a patient tells a nurse she is hungry and in response, the nurse gives the patient ill without speaking, the message given is “I will not talk with you.” When time, not spoken words, endure the nurse and the patient, the nurse may receive a message that the patient does not want to communicate. The patient may feel very censorship that perhaps he should not tell anyone that he is hungry. In the absence of clarification, messages can be misunderstood and patients may not be motivated to try again. The result is a defective communication process. The nurse has therefore to transmit feedbacks, both verbal and nonverbally to the patient throughout the period of interaction.

There are several barriers to be encountered in the effective communication process. Personal factors, such as personal space preferences, attitudes and perception, and environmental and physical factors such as time, facilities, and resources can hinder the nurse from using communication as a therapeutic aid. Workload influences the nurse’s ability to communicate well with her patient and the more incompetent the nurse will feel the less time for pledging therapeutic communication. Biases on the part of nurse-patient can make communication difficult. A cultural mismatch between nurse and the patient; the fact that the nurse is a woman rather than a man can also affect communication. Developmental and disabilities also become barriers to communicate effectively. The patient who is unconscious, demented, hearing-impaired, young, old, or seriously ill becomes uninterested communication. The patient is on drugs can also interfere with communication.

3. Strategies for Improving Communication in Nursing Practice

For this particular care to develop, not only must health professionals be sensitive and skilled, but professional environments must be established or re-established that recognize and value diverse ethnic behaviors and encourage learning of them. As nurses developing the skills to become culturally competent caregivers, it remains important to emphasize respect through communication. As English remains the medium through which health care is dispensed, culturally competent care must be delivered in an environment of communication, that is, to patients with differences in English language proficiency.

1. Introduction In this chapter, we examine strategies for improving communication in nursing practice. Techniques include using the same language as the patient. At every given opportunity, nurses should allow their patients to express themselves in their own language. Becoming familiar with medical terminology also helps nurses understand what they read in patients’ charts. Drawing on personal reflections, Ganitsekwoyagon feels that being a strong patient advocate in hospital settings is significant in providing culturally competent care. Savikko and colleagues also found that effective communication between health professionals and minority language patients is seen as an essential part of culturally competent care.

4. The Impact of Effective Communication on Patient Outcomes

Rafferty lays out the need for improved nursing communication, pointing to avoidable adverse outcomes. “Communication errors and patient harm are preventable” categories, says Rafferty. With thousands of patients dying each year from infections in hospitals, the stakes rise. Good communication skills mean fewer errors and improved quality of care. A defensive professional climate and increased risk of clinicians ordering unnecessary medical interventions further underscore the need to study provider-to-provider communication. Good role models have been seen to influence upcoming providers. Would-be clinicians may learn bad habits if they observe interactions between physicians and nursing that are disorganized or unfocused.

Effective communication is the lifeblood of any relationship, including those between patients and providers. It can often mean the difference between life and death, between suffering and relief from pain. Accurate, timely transmission of information is critical, but there’s nothing magical about achieving this. It takes developed skills just like any other clinical task. What’s more, says UVA nursing professor Erin M. Rafferty, those skills are not innate. They must be learned and practiced just like everything else a nurse does. Effective communication impacts overall job performance, team effectiveness, and quality of patient care. For this reason, UVA’s Rector and Visitors endowed professorship in nursing studies the impact of communication at both the patient and provider level.

5. Conclusion and Recommendations for Future Practice

We recommend that nursing curriculum provides more time for communication issue discussions and provides special programs and simulation classes for teaching communication issues. It is also necessary to have a supportive supervisor and policies related to communication during incidents.

Although the word communication is generally accepted to mean that two or more people are able to share information in a way that is understood by others, effective communication is one of the most important aspects in nursing care. Good communication between patients, families, and nurses is important for the development of quality care. Patients need to know what is wrong, what is to be done, how it will be done, when it will be done, and what they can expect. Nurses need to know the same things. Without good communication with the team, time is wasted, patient care activities are not coordinated, the cost of care increases, and patient safety is compromised. The nurse must assure that messages are clear, accurate, understandable, and in line with the best interests of the patient. No physician, nurse, or anyone else in healthcare can prevent all adverse incidents, but all can improve patient safety by openly, honestly, and thoughtfully communicating with individuals involved and by developing ways to prevent errors from happening again.