Therapeutic Communication Errors in Nursing Practice

Running head: HUMAN LIFE COURSE AND DEVELOPMENT
HUMAN LIFE COURSE AND DEVELOPMENT
Name of the Student:
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1HUMAN LIFE COURSE AND DEVELOPMENT
Introduction:
The essay focuses on the concept of therapeutic communication that the error that
occurred between the nurse and the patient relating to therapeutic communication and
professional boundaries. Therapeutic communication is an important constituent of nursing
where face-to-face method of interaction takes place that primarily focus to provide adequate
support to the patient involving emotional and physical well-being (Riley 2015). Nurses
utilize the method of therapeutic communication in order to promote high quality of care to
the patient. The essay will focus on the error performed by the nurse while conducting
therapeutic communication. The significance of each error is explained in the essay and
strategies is also discussed to reduce the therapeutic communication error.
Error 1:
In order to establish a good therapeutic communication it is important that the nurse
develops a good rapport and gain all relevant knowledge regarding the patient that will allow
the patient to feel comfortable with the nurse (Arnold and Boggs 2019). In the provided video
it was seen the nurse had zero idea regarding the information of the patient. The nurse was
not even aware of the patient’s name and called her Mandy that was corrected by the patient
saying that her name is Sandy and not Mandy. This careless attitude of the nurse was
considered as the first error that in a way created a negative impression on the patient as
evident from her facial expression that could possibly influence her future treatment
procedure (Brownie, Scott and Rossiter 2016).
The strategy to reduce the communication error in nursing practice would be to
educate the nurse to collect all relevant information about the patient that would help the
patient to be comfortable with the nurse and the treatment would be smooth and effective.
Relevant information does not include only medical information but also include her personal

2HUMAN LIFE COURSE AND DEVELOPMENT
detail like name, age, cultural background and sex of the patient (Dabkowski 2016). Hence, it
will allow the patient to skip any chances of therapeutic communication error and treat the
patient effectively.
Error 2:
In healthcare maintaining a healthy professional boundary is important that will allow
the nurse to maintain the dignity and privacy of the patient and treat the patient effectively.
Hence, professional boundary is denoted as limit that maintains the patient-nurse relationship
where the nurse is not permitted to discuss anything about their personal life or ask the
patient about their personal life that does not concern the nurse or useful in treating the
patient (Corrao 2016). In the video it was seen that the nurse crossed her professional
boundary and was discussing about her personal life including her boyfriends that was not
required and even the patient was not interested in listening to her personal life. This was
considered as the second professional boundary error that created a negative impression on
the patient.
The strategy to reduce the professional boundary error in nursing practice would be to
educate the nurse to not disclose any personal information that is not related with the
treatment procedure of the patient and maintain the dignity y of the patient while treating
(Joyce 2016). The nurses should only be allowed to disclose their name and their speciality.
Error 3:
Establishing a healthy therapeutic communication requires the nurse to effectively
communicate the advantage and significance of any diagnosis procedure or test procedure
performed to the patient so that the patient gain some information regarding the treatment and
can incorporate their decision or ideas in the treatment process (Grant and Goodman 2018).
The nurses are majorly responsible to produce awareness among the patient’s medication,