Effective Communication Skills in Nursing: Critical Reflection and Analysis

This paper discusses the importance of effective communication skills in nursing through critical reflection and analysis of two videos. The videos showcase the role of healthcare professionals in communicating with patients and establishing therapeutic relationships. The paper also highlights the need for micro-communication skills and promoting health literacy in patients.

Running head: NURSING
Nursing
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
The following paper two videos based on the parameter of role play by healthcare
professionals in communicating with the patient. This will be followed by critical reflection
and analysis of the communication approach in detail. The analysis of the video will help to
improve by interpersonal communication skills.
Video: 1 Discharge planning following suicide attempt
The analysis of the video showed that the healthcare practitioner (counsellor) was
successful in establishing therapeutic relationship with the patient (Leslie). The relaxing
posture and communication approach exhibited by the patient showed that she is comfortable
in front of the counsellor in discussing her mental health and personal life. The approach
made by the counsellor (non-verbal communication skills) like the body language,
maintenance of eye contact, active listing and showing concern for the client are few of the
features that paved the way for the establishment of therapeutic relationships. According to
Arnold and Boggs (2019), non-verbal communication skills play an important role in trust
development with the patient and thus helping to increase the provision of care. Death of
Leslie’s mother and complications in the relationship with her boy-friend are the reasons
behind her chronic depression and suicidal attempt. She is also jobless at present that might
be another reason behind her depression. Counsellor handled this sensitive approach with
utmost care by showing empathy and concern for her (client). She was also found telling not
all the people are same she her issue can be dealt easily. This helped in showcasing client
centred approach. Davis Boykins (2014) stated that client centred approach helps in improve
the mental health outcome by highlighting the clinical priority and taking appropriate actions.
Genuineness of care was demonstrated when the counsellor promoted client empowerment in
medication management and also informed her about her future therapy plan. Kilpatrick

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(2013) stated that patient empowerment in the care plan with health literacy helps to promote
faster health recovery. There was no significant noise barrier as the face to face conversation
occurred in a separate room where only two people. Weber and Farrell, T. (2016) stated that
face-to-face conversation in the quite room with limited disturbances helps in increasing the
provision for establishment of therapeutic relationship.
Few of the approaches done by counsellor was excellent for example she shared her
contact details and told Leslie that she is always available for any help. However, in the entire
video, Leslie was fumbling every time she was speaking and she had a teary eye with lots of
pain. She was looking away from the counsellor. As per my understanding, though the
counsellor displayed some of the potential non-verbal communication skills, the overall
micro-communication skills was poor. Thus I would take help of the core micro-
communication skills like us of facts and figures along with the use of reflective feeling to
make Leslie understand that she is not the only one who is suffering from such complex
mental health condition. There are many people who get admitted in the hospital daily with
similar problems like her. In explaining so I will express compassionate and supporting facial
expression in order to make her feel that I am concerned for her. According to McCabe et al.
(2016) stated that micro-communication skills helps in increasing the provision of the person-
centered approach in the mental healthcare plan and thus helping to increase the provision of
care. Betz and Boudreaux (2016) stated that caring for patients with suicidal thoughts is
challenging. However, connecting with their acute emotional pain and helping to reduce their
fear by informing them about the rate of recovery from such complex mental health issue
helps to provide positive motivation and thus helping to increase the level of trust and
decrease in the perplexed mental condition.
Reflection

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The reflection is based on the conversation done with the counselor and Leslie. Leslie
has attempted suicide as she suffers from chronic depression after the loss of her mother. She
is at present unemployment and is having relationship issue with her boyfriend. My initial
feeling after watching the video was why the woman is always showing disturbed facial
expression with sadness filled in eyes. However, after watching the entire video I understood
her complex mental turmoil through which she is passing. I also understand how
compassionate approach, consoling and giving courage or strength to a mental health patient
can help to boost the self-esteem. Berg, Rørtveit and Aase (2017) stated that boosting self-
esteem helps in reducing the severity of depression and thus reducing the vulnerability of
suicidal attempts. Going forward I will plan to work on by micro-communication skills. Thus
before interacting with a patient with a particular mental health complication, I will first
prepare myself with proper health statistics and data and other therapy plans so that I can
make the patient feel empowered and boost the level of confidence that he or she can also
recover.
Video 2: Outpatient Clinic Diabetes
Throughout the process, the health practitioner was successful in achieving “mutual
understanding” with both the client (child) and her mother. The evidences of the mutual
understanding was displayed in cases like counselor took consent from the child regarding
whether she would contact the school in order to take special approaches for management of
the insulin intake. This is was important for the child as he was unable to take insulin by
himself stating that he has needle phobia. His mother gives him insulin at home. However, at
school he has no one to manage her insulin administration. The mutual understanding was
also reflected when in giving consent for the dietician for preparing the diet plan. However,
the child failed to provide consent for the visit summer camp for diabetes education and

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management and the counselor respected the child’s refusal. According to Hojat (2016)
development of mutual understanding with the client helps in increasing the client’s
participation in the care and in improving the overall quality of care. The counselor
demonstrated empathy care and compassion and genuineness along with respect. For
example, since the patient is a child, use of chuckling smile, using friendly child like gestures
were used by the counselor in order to express empathy and compassion for the client. The
body language was however, not clearly visible from the video as all the individuals were
present in the video in a sitting posture. However, the counselor used direct eye-contact with
both the child and the mother during the entire process of communication. The child though
not looking directly to the counselor while interacting, the counselor never lost hope and
repeatedly tried to be friendly with the child. This helped her to obtain consent in initiation of
therapy planning. The main communication skill utilized by the counselor is use of open-
ended questionnaire. Thieme et al. (2014) stated that use of open-ended questionnaire helps
the client to expression their feelings or concerns in detail. It is due to the use of the open-
ended questionnaire that the counselor understood that the child has needle phobia. The child
also reported that he feels ashamed at school for his health condition. The conversation took
place in a quiet and clam room with no noise interruption the communication. Stanley et al.
(2018) stated that counseling in the healthcare practice must occur in isolated room in order
to respect privacy and confidentiality of the client while promoting effective communication.
The physiological barrier happened in few instances when the child refused to express of
cooperate with the counselor. If I were the healthcare professional in this scenario, I would
not discuss the complex healthcare issue related to the disease in front of the patient if he or
she is not an adult. For example, while the child’s mother was asking for the alternative for
insulin injection as he has needle phobia, the counselor informed that the alternative for
needle is insulin pump. However, at present it is not suitable for the child as his blood

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glucose level is extremely high (Pulgarón et al., 2014). Listening o this, the facial expression
of both the mother and her child changed. Delamater et al. (2014) are of the opinion, in case
treating patients who are not adults, providing information about the negative aspect of the
disease can lead to the generation of phobia in the client leading to decreased level of
participation in the care plan. In this case I would discuss this issue with child’s mother
separately. One thing that I have learnt from this video is promotion of health literacy of the
child by the use of effective communication skill. Kalantzi et al. (2015) stated that use of
effective communication depending upon the age of the child helps to increase the level of
participation of the child in the disease progression and also helps to increase the skill of
disease management.
Reflection
In the reflection, I would like to highlight that overall video was very informative. It
helped me in understanding the approach of communication that is required to be taken while
interacting with the child. It also helped me to understand the approach of promoting health
literacy to both the mother and the child. Going forward I would try to improve by skills of
interacting with a child. Crawford et al. (2013) stated that the approach of interaction with the
child differs from that of adults, more compassionate and caring approach must be taken
while interacting with the child.
Conclusion
Thus from the above discussion, it can be stated that use of effective communication
skills play an important role in establishing therapeutic relationship with the client. Use of
compassionate attitude, maintaining of the eye contact and respecting clients dignity are few
of the basic approach that is required to be followed in all the instances.

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