Therapeutic Communication Skills and Inter-Professional Collaboration in Nursing

Running head: Nursing 1
Nursing
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Nursing 2
Therapeutic communication skills and inter-professional collaboration (IPC) practice are
essential requirements for providing safe nursing care and promoting Patient-Centred
Care.
Introduction
Therapeutic communication is significant in promoting and sustaining healthy relationships
and IPC; all of which are essential for providing safe nursing care and promoting Patient-
Centred Care. It is absolutely important more so for nurses because they do not only
provide care services to those who are physically ill, but are also responsible for the
emotional wellbeing of their clients. Despite the significance of therapeutic communication
skills in IPC practice and in the provision of patient centred care, there is little emphasis on
its significance. This essay aims at exploring the significance of therapeutic communication
skills in IPC practice and in the provision of safe nursing care and promoting Patient-Centred
Care. The essay examines core therapeutic communication skills for achieving Patient-
Centred Care and safe nursing practice, barriers to effective communication, the role of IPC
practice in the delivery of Patient-Centred Care, and communication strategies to improve
IPC and Patient-Centred Care.
Therapeutic communication skills are critical for effective patient centred care and safe
nursing practice. These skills include active listening, therapeutic use of touch and listening.
Active listening is a significant aspect of communication and it is more than just hearing and
keeping silent while during the conversation. In other words, active listening is not passive
and it involves the nurse’s hearing, processing and purposefully understanding the words of
the client in his or her context. Jasmine (2009) notes that active listening entails good
positioning, facial expression, posture and eye contact, all of which are a demonstration of
the honest interest of the healthcare expert in the patient. According to O'hagan et al.
(2014) there is a therapeutic significance when a patient perceives that the physician is
actively listening. The authors observe that active listening improves diagnosis, healing and
the relationship between the healthcare professional and the patient. Similar findings were
also arrived at by Griffiths (2017) who found out that doctors that were perceived to be
active listeners were highly regarded by their patients.

Nursing 3
Touch is also one of the core therapeutic communication skills required to achieve Patient-
Centred Care and safe nursing practice. Touch is also known as haptic communication and it
signifies care. Comfort touch such as holding a hand has been found to be significant for
vulnerable clients who are undergoing severe pain (O'hagan et al., 2014). The author also
found out that patients considered the behaviour of nurses to be nice when they used
therapeutic touch to comfort or reassure them. The patients also perceived a ‘touch on the
arm’ to be symbolic of comfort, and was also essential in effective patient assessment.
Silence is another therapeutic communication skill that involves time for the physician and
the patient to observe each other, reflect on what to say, and analyse what has been
verbally communicated. Jasmine (2009) recommends that the healthcare expert should
allow the patient to break the silence.
The three barriers to effective communication in nursing practice include language barrier,
cultural differences and work environment. Differences in the language between the nurse
and client are barriers to effective communication. If a common language is not understood
by both the nurse and the client, then the interaction between them is very limited (Albahri,
Abushibs, & Abushibs, 2018), and it is likely to lead to miscommunication,
misunderstanding, and misdiagnosis. Norouzinia, Aghabarari, Shiri, Karimi, & Samami (2015)
observed that colloquial languages were significant communication barriers and that
patients were less acceptant of healthcare providers with different languages. Additionally,
different languages also implied different cultures and therefore, even non-verbal
communication was different since the signs could be misinterpreted.
Culture is another critical hindrance to effective communication in nursing practice. The
client’s culture may hinder effective interactions with the nurse due to the different view on
health and death. It is required that the nurse become much more sensitive when dealing
with clients of different cultures because one culture may perceive a touch on the shoulder
to be symbolic of comfort while another culture might perceive it differently. (Norouzinia et
al., 2015). Albahri et al. (2018) examined the barriers to effective communication between
private doctors and patients and found out that cultural factors such as lack of cultural