Active Listening in Nursing: Importance and Benefits

Running head: NURSING
Nursing
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

1NURSING
Description:
During my week 2 classes, I learned about the concept of active listening. The weekly
content gave knowledge regarding the key attributes needed for active listening and the evidence
regarding the benefits of active listening for health care professionals. The lessons and key
concepts of this week lesson was an enriching experience for me as I learnt that active listening
is also an important part of nurse-patient communication process.
Feelings:
Before attending the class on active listening, I had the notion that communication skills
regularly interacting with patient is enough to identify patient needs. However, after going
through the class lessons, my concepts and ideas changed as I realized that active listening is also
an important element of communication that helps to maintain equity in care and give that space
to patients where they can comfortably express their health related needs and other concerns. I
started to feel very positive after completing the activities related to lessons as I realized that this
skill can help me to actively engage patients in their health care decision making.
Evaluation:
The key lessons for the week 2 content included discussion on the attributes of active
listening, evidence regarding the power of silence, the skills of active listening and reflective
exercise on the topic. I was overwhelmed with the lessons regarding the benefits that a nurse can
obtain by active listening. The use of abbreviation for the word ‘LISTEN’ and description
regarding each word was a very useful teaching technique that made me very clear regarding
how should I behave to promote active listening. The evidence gave me the idea about getting
involved in the conversation with patient and testing understanding with patients to confirm

2NURSING
correct interpretation of ideas. Jahromi et al. (2016) gives the evidence that active listening is a
special communication skills where the listener uses verbal questions and non-verbal visual cues
to signify that the opinion of the patient or other individual is important. The ‘LISTEN’ acronym
guided me regarding the way to achieve this.
I regard the lessons learned during this week to very important for my future role as a
health care professional because the standard 2 of the registered nurse standards of practice
requires nurse to engage in therapeutic and professional relationship with patient. This standard
is fulfilled by effective communication skills and respecting patient’s values and belief. The
knowledge gained through active listening will help me to fulfil this standard of practice
(Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, 2017). This is because the knowledge regarding
active listening will support me to understand and respect values and beliefs of the person.
Analysis:
On reflecting on the overall experience of attending the class on active listening and
completing reflection based activities, I can say that that the reflective exercise was the important
part of the learning experience. This is because by discussion with my classmates regarding how
to become better listeners, my idea about active listening further strengthened and I came to learn
about minute details about active listening. For example, during the reflective exercise, we were
asked question regarding the importance of seeing the person while talking. While research on
this question, I learnt that non-verbal skills like eye contact, facial expressions, body movement,
appropriate posture and showing interest in patient’s words are important attributes of a good
active listener (Trupkovic et al., 2018). Earlier, I had the opinion that making eye contact with
patient was not important. However, the class lessons and further research on the topic changed