Importance of Therapeutic Relationship, Communication, Health Literacy, and Teamwork in Nursing Care

Running head: CRITICAL REFLECTION
CRITICAL REFLECTION
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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CRITICAL REFLECTION
Introduction:
Reflective practice helps nursing professionals to enhance their skills and knowledge by
helping them to identify their strengths and weakness and work on them (McCormack et al.,
2016). This assignment would also be a reflective piece which would be utilizing the framework
of Gibb’s reflection cycle, and accordingly help me to identify my flaws and weakness. The
assignment would be mainly discussing the importance of four important components of
effective nursing care. The four important themes are how therapeutic relationship development
through communication, health literacy and effective teamwork ensure safe and quality care to
patients. It would also show how ethical dilemmas need to be handled in healthcare centers.
Description:
During the time of my placement, I got the scope of treating many old patients suffering
from various co-morbid disorders. Once, I got the opportunity to treat an 80 year old lady named
Susanne who was suffering from a huge number of co-morbid disorders like diabetes,
osteoarthritis, obesity, fall risk, and many others. She was found to suffer from depression as she
was not able to cope with the effects of so many disorders altogether. She was upset of losing her
independence as she needed the help of an attendant to complete her activities of daily life. This
had affected her self esteem. I was allocated as her nursing professional. While providing care to
her, I learnt and experienced many important aspects that were intricately associated with higher
patient satisfaction like effective communication skills, patient centered care and others. I spent a
considerable amount of time in initiating a communication with her as she was not ready to talk
to me at first. My communication skills helped me to establish a strong bond with the patient that
ultimately made the patient develop trust on me. However, the healthcare team that was allocated

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CRITICAL REFLECTION
for her care could not provide the best care services that were expected. The team members did
not communicate with each other and also did not share good bonds with each other. There were
many cases of medication errors, missed interventions, improper delegation, omissions, and
similar others. When the members of the senior authority intervened, they started blame games
against each other. A power struggle was observed among the experts. However, I faced an
ethical dilemma while caring for the patient. The patient was fearful of taking injections but she
had to be provided insulin as her blood glucose level was quite high. This resulted in a conflict
between autonomy and beneficence. In such a situation, I could not decide what to do and got
much tensed. My mentor helped the situation by making the patient understand the pros and cons
of her decisions and communicated with her in so efficient way that she got ready for the
injection. He applied his critical reasoning skills and effective communication skill to master the
situation. However, I efficiently educated the patient about the diet and lifestyle modification she
needs to adopt and these helped her to overcome her suffering. She was found quite happy when
she visited the organization for her first checkup after release.
Feelings:
This experience had made me go through different feelings. While interacting with the
patient, she was at forts rude and was not replying to me. I felt quite bad by her behavior but
could understand the rationale of her behavior. She was upset of losing her freedom. Therefore, I
overcame my negative feeling and tried my best to communicate with her. Every day, conflicts
used to arise among the different experts as they either communicated among themselves or not
consulted their actions. They blamed each other. All these created stress within me and affected
my enthusiasm to work in the team. I was also scared when the patient denied to take the insulin
injection. I could not understand what to do at that time and felt helpless. I also got nervous as I