Nursing Communication: Components and Alternatives

Introduction
Communication is an essential tool for safe and quality nursing practice. Implementation of
effective communication skills helps the health professional to plan nursing care. Effective
communication skills like active listening, trust, compassion promote the patient nurse
relationship (Riley 2015). The nurse has to ensure cultural safety and respect while
communicating with the patients with various culture. This assessment aids in comprehensive
discussion on the components of the communication used in the scenario, limitations of the
communication and the alternatives with the specific examples. Potential barriers to
communication in the case scenario are also involved in the discussion.
A comprehensive discussion of components of communication used in the scenario helps to
understand the importance of interpersonal communication in the health care system. Verbal
and non-verbal communications are the two modes of communication widely used to pass on
the information (Papadopoulos et al. 2016). In the scenario the communication was not
executed according to the Nursing and midwifery board of Australia’s standards of practice.
Concreteness is the component used in the scenario. Concreteness is the professional way of
commutation generally used among the business people. But in the nursing profession, the
nurse must adhere to professional communication that ensures safe and quality nursing care.
In the scenario the nurse has communicated with an Angela without considering cultural
safety and respect. Other components of the communication that ignored in the scenario are
the courtesy, kindness, and completeness. Nurses must gain basic knowledge about the
components of communication and implement it to practice.
Discussion on the limitations of communication skills in the scenario aids in understanding
the limitations and effects of incompetent communication skill. The components of
communication that are ignored by the nurse are courtesy, kindness, and completeness.

Completeness is said to be communicating a message considering the receivers perception. In
the scenario, the nurses involved in both the incidents are not bothered about the patient’s
perception when they communicate (Lor, Crooks & Tluczek 2016) First example from the
scenario is, the nurse did not consider the culture and safety of Aboriginal person. Her
attitude is reflected in her communication. The Nurse believes that the people from
Aboriginal community are behind money which is not the fact. The nurse did not show
respect for the person and her culture. The second example, from the scenario is the nurse
shouting at Angela when her son is suffering from Anaphylactic shock which is a medical
emergency. This incident proves that Angela did not receive safe and quality nursing care.
Nursing and Midwifery board of Australia’s standards of practice states that the nurse must
use professional communication that not hurts the patient’s cultural beliefs, attitudes, and
religious beliefs.
Discussion on the alternative communication skills that would have been used in the scenario
helps to improve communication in nursing practice. Verbal and Non-verbal communication
is the common mode of communication widely used in patient care (Williams, Ilten & Bower
2016). Verbal communication is applied well in the case scenario but elements of Non-verbal
communication are not implemented in the case of Angela. Gesture, smile, eye to eye contact,
friendly languages are the essential elements neglected in the scenario. The nurse’s
communication should have reflected respect for the patient’s culture. One of the effective
communication skills is the awareness of the cultural back ground of the patient because each
patient is from different cultural back ground. The nurse should have shown respect for the
early inhabitants of her country and used the terms that do not hurt the patient emotionally.
On considering the Nurse involved in the second incident, she should have listened to
Angela’s words and should have assessed her son who was in medical emergency. If she was

busy, then she should have get help from her fellow staffs. Both the incidents show that the
nurse’s attitude towards the specific community is reflected in their behaviour.
Assessment on the potential barriers of communication in the scenario aids in improving the
communication and being aware of the communication barriers. Communication barrier in
the scenario is the attitude of the nurses who were involved in the incident. Attitude and
believes about the people from specific cultural background limited their communication and
controlled their actions (Norouzinia et al. 2016). Cultural diversity significantly affects
interpersonal communication in nursing practice. Because each culture has specific slang,
body language, believes and attitudes. The Nurse has to understand and respect each aspect of
the patient’s cultural. Directly and indirectly hurting the patient’s cultural values and believes
is against the law and the nursing standards of Australian board. According to the code of
ethics the nurse should ensure equal nursing care for the entire patient’s she cares for
regardless of age, colour, religion, culture, and Nationality.
A comprehensive discussion on the consequences of personal bias for culturally safe and
respectful nursing care ensures insight into the nurse’s responsibility in nursing practice. The
biased attitude of the care giver significantly affects the recovery of the patient. The cultural
disparity is common in health care. Nurses has to care for people from different cultural back
ground, religion, believes, and nationality (Almutairi, McCarthy & Gardner 2015). The
biased approach of the nurse in patient care drastically affects the physical and mental health
of the patient. Patient centered care is the fundamental principle of quality nursing care.
However, the nurse with biased attitude will not ensure the patient centered care for her
patient. Biased attitude has dual impact, both on the patient and the nurse. The patient lacks
the safe and quality nursing care and the nurses are also incapable of providing nursing care
according to the code of ethics and standards of practice of nursing and midwifery board of
Australia.