Communication in Nursing

Running head: COMMUNICATION IN NURSING
COMMUNICATION IN NURSING
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1COMMUNICATION IN NURSING
Effective nurse-patient communication
The communication in between the nurses and the patients is very crucial in establishing
a good therapeutic relationship and also for maintaining the safety of the patient not only with
respect to the safety of health but also with respect to the cultural and psychological safety. The
nurse must talk politely with the patient as if the patient is her own family member. The nurse
must never be rude to the patient. Communication problem mostly occur with the elderly person
who do not easily understand to what the nurse is saying. So the nurse must talk politely with
them. Apart from the verbal communication, non-verbal communication is also important. The
nurse must no show such attitudes which the patients cannot understand. The nurse must provide
effective care to the patients, not every patients require the same treatments, so treatment should
be given according the diseases. The nurse keep records of the patients in order to avoid any
further miscommunication.
A case study is given by following ISBAR showing effective communication between the
nurse and a patient. I have worked with the case scenario 1, where the patient is an old man.
The name of the patient is George Pham. He has come for doing a health assessment to a
registered nurse. Apart from having a stressful life of work, George can be said a healthy person.
He took care of his grandchildren. His health problems are very minor which can be changed by
improving the food habits of him and if any positive changes happen in his life.
The nurse asked George about why he has come for the assessment and also about his
personal details (Gjerberg et al., 2015). George then told to her that he is an old man of 73 years
of age. He has no such illness and also he do not suffer from allergies. He has his daughter who
is 35 years of age and also has three grandchildren. They all lived near her only. He live in a flat

2COMMUNICATION IN NURSING
of two bedroom. He told that the main reason for his coming for the check is that he was
suffering from cough and that it was not getting cured since the last five weeks. He used to
smoke 20 cigarettes every day and continued for 42 years but at present due to cough he has left
smoking. He accepted that he still drinks beer.
The nurse asked the medical background of the patient. George told that he do not have
much physical problems, he only came as he was no getting cured of the cough that he was
suffering since the last five weeks. His height is 170cm and his weight is 71kgs. So his BMI is
also normal. His blood pressure is 164/92, so it is seen that the blood pressure is high. The blood
pressure has increased because of hypertension. The respiratory rate is 20, which is also normal
as the normal respiratory rate range is 12 to 28 breathes per minute (Pu, Zhang & Carlson,
2015). His heart rate is 94 which value is also normal the normal heart rate for adults and adults
are 60-100 per minutes (Caetano & Alves, 2015). His body temperature is also normal. The
nurse found him to be an active person who takes care of his family a lot. He is such a familiar
person that he takes his grandchildren to the beach on the Sundays.
Through the various questions that the nurse asked him, she understood that he seldom
gets anytime for a work out or for walking few minutes as most of the times of the day he
remains busy with his work and his family members. Proper understanding about the healthcare
beliefs, preferences and values of the patients must be done by the nurse. Patients’ beliefs
includes his desires for heath information, perception of the conditions of the health and whether
the patient is concerned about the diagnoses of the disease (Tucker et al., 2015). The patient
George is concerned about his heath, so it can be said that he has health beliefs and values. He is
concerned about his health and so he came for doing his health assessment. The lifestyle that he
is maintaining is good but in order to live a healthy life, he needs to change his present life style