Communication with Patients: Skills, Symptoms, Relaxation Techniques, and Diazepam

Running head: COMMUNICATION WITH PATIENTS
COMMUNICATION WITH PATIENTS
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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COMMUNICATION WITH PATIENTS
Communication skills required:
The nursing professional can realize that the patient is highly nervous about the surgery
and therefore, she needs to be careful while interacting with him ensuring that none of her
conversations with the patient adds to his anxiety. The first important thing that the patient
should be maintaining while communicating with the patient is the active listening skill (Wood et
al., 2015). It is very important for the person to feel that the professionals are listening to them.
This helps them to feel that the professionals are concerned about them and are respectful about
what they want to say. Therefore, the nurse attending Stefan would first listen to him entirely
without interrupting him. In many of the situations, it is seen that patients get anxious as the
hospital environment is unknown to them and they do not know what to expect (Hoge et al.,
2015). Therefore, the nurse should first help Stefan to become comfortable and discuss in details
about his situation and what needs to be done with him. Clear description of the procedure with
the positive and negative aspects associated with surgeries or other treatments help in developing
a clear scenario in the mind of the patient and this would help in reducing anxiety and
nervousness in the patient. Many researchers are of the opinion that nurses should not constantly
tell anxious patients to relax (El alaqui et al., 2015). Instead, the nursing professionals should tell
the patient about the techniques that they can undertake to relax as that would help them to
overcome nervousness. The nurse should also show Stefan some relaxation techniques to help
him overcome nervousness. Often using of humor is seen to be effective helping patients to
relieve their stress. Therefore while communicating, the nurse should make efforts to lighten the
mood of Stefan and try to bee personable. She can also engage in different types of informal
conversations to keep his mind away from his source of concern. The professionals also need to
be empathetic when the patients are nervous. This would make Stefan feel that the nurse has

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COMMUNICATION WITH PATIENTS
understood his condition and is not judging him and rather feeling exactly what Stefan is feeling.
This helps in developing therapeutic relation with patients and helps in managing their
nervousness. The nursing professionals need to ensure that they are patient enough to handle
such situation and do not impose their biased thinking on the comments of the patients. The
nurse who is attending the patient might feel that Stefan’s worry is baseless but she should never
express them and maintain the uniqueness of each patient providing him person centered care,
she should never be biased and judgmental on the condition of the patient and sure
communication with him in a respectful manner.
Signs and symptoms:
A number of signs and symptoms have been identified after close analysis of the patient
named Stefan that help to know that he is highly nervous and has developed anxiety. The first
symptom that helps to understand is Stefan’s excessive worrying about the surgery. Restlessness
is yet another symptom for restlessness (Miloff et al., 2015). Stefan is found to be excessively
restless and he was not able to sit peacefully and comfortably at any position. This high level of
restlessness and worrying give a clear indication that he was suffering from anxiety. One of the
most important sign that was also noticed is the difficulty in concentrating. Different evidence
based studies have already shown that people suffering from anxiety cannot concentrate on any
particular activities. While the nurse was taking the medical history of the patient along with his
partner, Stefan was seen to be replying with short answers and suddenly stood up and started
working in the room. This showed that he was not putting concentration in the medical history
recording with the nurse. Another sign and symptom of anxiety is the trouble of the patient
falling or staying asleep (Storch et al., 2015). From the outer appearance of the patient, it was
seen that he had bags under his eyes, which implied that he might have not slept for many days,