Importance of Therapeutic Communication in Healthcare

Running Head: HEALTHCARE
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Professional conduct and communication
5/26/2019

HEALTHCARE
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Topic: Importance of Therapeutic communication in the caring for
clients/patients
The essay brings about the discussion on the concept of ‘therapeutic communication’, with
the important role in context to health setting. The term therapeutic communication means
face-to-face communication between the health provider and patient to ensure the physical
and emotional wellbeing. Nurses use therapeutic communication and establish healthy
relationship with the patients to improve their health condition. The essay will analyse the
benefit of the therapeutic alliance leading to positive health outcomes, however there has
been no disadvantage from the use of therapeutic communication, so it acts as limitation of
the essay. Thus, the essay will bring analysis of the therapeutic communication, and the ways
it help managing the care of the patients within healthcare (Delaney, Shattell & Johnson,
2017)
Therapeutic communication can be b defined as the communication strategies that leads to
the patient’s health and wellbeing in context to their illness. The goal of therapeutic
communication is to enable the patient feel free and cared enough to discuss about their
health problem and express their issues. One of the significant aspects in the nurse-client
relationship is the element of trust, which is developed through effective communication
within healthcare. A number of components of therapeutic communication i.e. trust, honesty,
empathy, acceptance, privacy, and non-judgemental attitude towards the patient. Empathy
refers to the expression of understanding, validating and integrating with the meaning,
determined by the healthcare experiences for the client for their respective illness. In context
to the nursing, or healthcare standards, empathy, is communicated as the emotional distance
from the client to ensure professionalism in the caring of the client (Kinniburg et al., 2017).
These aspects increase the effectiveness of communication between the health
provider and the patient. Therapeutic communication includes two parts, i.e. verbal and non-
verbal communication. The process of communication through verbal mediums includes the
right use of words, and tone of voice. On the other hand, therapeutic communication through
non-verbal mediums or methods consists of the aspects such as appearance body-language
and eye-contact of the nurse with the patient. These aspects are crucial in the process of

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treatment and care of the patient using therapeutic communication in the healthcare.
Therefore, it has been understood that nurses in healthcare must follow and work in
accordance to these components to provide effective care (Registered Nursing, 2018).
From the above discussion the role and importance of therapeutic communication has
been understood. Furthermore, to state process of therapeutic communication in healthcare
settings helps caring through developing sound therapeutic alliance or therapeutic
relationship. It helps reducing the stress or anxiety of the patients related to the treatment and
their healthcare. Some of the important techniques of therapeutic communication are used by
the healthcare professionals to treat patients. These techniques include active listening,
exploring, reflecting, restating, and others. However, ‘paraphrasing’ is one of the important
techniques of the therapeutic communication. To paraphrase is to restate the statement of the
patient, so that he or she may know that the nurse or professional is listening (Delaney,
Shattell & Johnson, 2017).
Effective nurse-patient communication is considered as the cornerstone of the nursing
care and treatment, irrespective of the type of healthcare setting. It has been found that a
number of issues or loopholes in the care and treatment of the patient lacks agreement, due to
ineffective communication. The use of therapeutic communication in healthcare n provides
the professionals a holistic view of their clients, and this helps in reducing the risks related to
the treatment (Eriksson et al., 2016).
For an example, medication errors are one of the most common errors or issues in the
healthcare settings, and affect the care of the client. Effective communication in the
healthcare brings professionalism and professionals become more aware of their patient
needs and issues. Thus, it determines and facilitates the achievement of drug therapy, and
therefore it leads to positive health outcomes (Elden & Ismail, 2016).
To determine the importance of therapeutic communication for caring of the clients,
it aims to establish the mental health objectives for patients. An essential component of the
therapeutic communication, i.e. privacy and confidentiality are important to the care and
management of the health condition. Therefore, nurses must follow the rule of privacy, and
allow patients to disclose or express themselves freely. It has been found that the therapeutic
communication benefits the nurse along with the patients. As nurses become able to establish
positive rapport with the patient, and exchange valuable information with them required for