Significance of Therapeutic Communication Skills in IPC Practice

This essay assesses the significance of therapeutic communication skills in IPC practice and its role in offering safe nursing care and fostering quality healthcare. It discusses the fundamental therapeutic communication skills, hindrances to effective communication, the role of IPC practice in patient-centered care, and communication strategies to improve IPC and patient-centered care.

Running head: Nursing Assg 1
Nursing Assg.
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Introduction
The objective of nursing as a health care science is to attend to the
biopsychosocial and spiritual needs of people. Nursing practice requires
both scientific knowledge and relational and communication skills.
Therapeutic communication has been defined as the mechanism in which
the healthcare provider intentionally impacts a client or assist him or her
to a better comprehension through the use of verbal or non-verbal
communication. Therapeutic communication is important in fostering and
maintaining better associations and inter-professional collaboration (IPC)
practice, which is fundamental for nursing care (Jasmine, 2009). Despite
the significance of therapeutic communication skills in the provision of
healthcare services, there is a dearth of information emphasising on its
significance. The objective of this paper is to assess the significance of
therapeutic communication skills in IPC practice, and its role in offering
safe nursing care and fostering quality health care. The specific areas
addressed by this essay include the fundamental therapeutic
communication skills important in nursing practice, hindraces to effective
communication, the role of IPC practice in the provision of Patient-Centred
Care, and communication strategies to improve IPC and Patient-Centred
Care.
Question 1
The core therapeutic communication skills include Active Listening, asking
relevant questions and focusing. Active listening involves being attentive
to whatever the client is communicating verbally or non-verbally. Active
listening is not passive and therefore it entails the nurse hearing and
objectively processing the words of the client and responding according to
the client’s context. Sibiya (2018) observed that active listening is
commonly determined by non-verbal cues such as eye contact, the
distance between the nurse and patient, and body movements such as
nodding and inclining the body towards the speaker. The verbal indicators
of active listening include regular verbal feedbacks including encouraging

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sounds, and the responses should also indicate comprehension of both the
facts and the feelings implied in the facts. Jagosh, Boudreau, Steinert,
MacDonald, and Ingram, (2011) examined the significance of listening by
a healthcare expert listening from the perspective of the patient. The
study found out that active listening was significant in three major ways
namely: listening was a way of promoting and empowering the physician-
patient relationship; listening was a crucial element during diagnosis and
in the collection of data, and listening was healing and therapeutic.
According to Bramhall (2014), active listening is an effective therapeutic
communication skill in nursing practice because it establishes and
sustains a healthy patient-nurse relationship, improves health outcomes
and patient satisfaction.
Asking relevant questions is another therapeutic communication skill in
nursing practice. Nursing practice is also about making the right decisions
within a short time and also based on the information gathered from the
client. Nurses should ask one question at a time and explore it fully before
moving to another subject. Sibiya (2018) recommends the use of open-
ended questions for managing the conversation between clients and
nurses and for introducing an important topic to the patient.
Focusing on a therapeutic communication skill that is used to ensure the
patient pays attention to the topic of discussion, which is a reflection of
the patient’s priorities. This also ensures that the clients do not waste
time talking about irrelevant things, and ensures that the little available
time is used for obtaining in-depth information from the client which is
essential for diagnosis (Sibiya, 2018).
Question 2
The common hindrances to effective communication in healthcare deliery
include lack of effective communication skills and in the speciality areas,
high workload, and cultural differences. Anoosheh, Zarkhah, Faghihzadeh,
and Vaismoradi (2009) indicated that most of the graduate nurses and
some practising healthcare providers do not have adequate knowledge in

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communication skills and in their areas of specialization. The authors
found out that nurses were unable to communicate effectively with their
patients and thus leading to misdiagnosis. Moreover, healthcare experts
are not able to obtain the required information during diagnosis and thus
unable to make informed decisions on medication. This leads to increased
cases of re-admissions and low quality of patient care (White, Duncan, &
Baumle, 2010).
The nature of nursing work and its environment have also been found to
be significant barriers to effective communication. For instance, Amudha,
Hamidah, Annamma, and Ananth (2018) found out that 54% of nurses
attributed high workload to a shortage of nurses causing them to have
double shifts in case some staff went on medical leave. Additionally,
nurses are assigned huge tasks with limited time. Consequently, nurses
are so much overworked that they do not have sufficient time to attend to
the interests of their patients and to effectively converse on their health
progress.
The culture of the client may hinder effective nurse-patient
communication because opinions on health and death differ widely
between patients (Tay, Ang, & Hegney, 2012). Therefore, nurses should
be very sensitive when providing healthcare services to clients from
different cultures. Verbal and non-verbal communication can be
interpreted differently across cultures. For instance, eye contact may not
always be an indication of active listening in other cultures just like
physical touch may be an indication of empathy but in other cultures it be
forbidden between sexes. Therefore, it is essential for nurses to be
culturally sensitive when dealing with patients who are likely to come
from different cultural backgrounds.
Question 3
Interprofessional collaboration (IPC) practice plays a significant role in the
delivery of healthcare services. IPC is critical in addressing cultural and
diversity issues which are common in the delivery of patient centred care.

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IPC practice consists of multiple disciplines which are important when
addressing the patient and family needs which also require different
knowledge and skills from different professionals. Thus, a combination of
the knowledge of experts; which is the characteristic of IPC, provides
solutions to the complex nature of patient centred care (Fox & Reeves,
2015).
IPC is also essential because it ensures that the patient and the family are
the centres of care by including them in the collaborative process at each
level. This wins their confidence in the nurse, strengthens the nurse-
patient relationship and provides the patients with the best possible care.
Instead of having nurses taking turns to provide healthcare services, the
patients are assigned teams that provide constant care that produce
lasting results (McDonald & McCallin, 2010).
Question 4
The two communication strategies that can be utilised to improve
interprofessional collaboration practice and patient care include the
provision of training in communication skills and the establishment of
routine, reliable, and secure forms of communication. Training courses in
communication skills should focus on essential methods such as cue
recognition, active listening and summarising. Studies have indicated that
the communication skills taught while in school are not effective while it
comes to the application at the workplace (Levinson, Lesser, & Epstein,
2010). As a result, most nurses learn how to communicate effectively
while at work, thus necessitating the need to offer additional training on
communication skills at the workplace. Such courses can take three days
long, which also requires that the staff be allowed time off even in
resource pressures workplaces. The effectiveness of the training courses
can be measured by the improvement of the nurse’ interactions with
clients and the nurse-patient relationship.
Another communication strategy for improving IPC is through the
establishment of routine, reliable, and secure forms of communication. A

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communication system should be developed that is appropriate for
improving IPC. The communication system should be technology aided
because not all patients can communicate with their caregivers, and in
such cases, technology-aided communication devices can be utilised. For
instance, clients that are unable to speak may be allowed to express their
views into a computer that announces them aloud. The system should
also incorporate both formal and informal forms of communication. Formal
communication is often strict and has no allowance for feedback or
contrary view. It can, however, be used in formal communication when
elaborating on hospital policies to families and clients. Informal
communication is less structured and often permits more association and
communication between clients and family members (Foronda,
MacWilliams, & McArthur, 2016).
Conclusion
Therapeutic communication skills and interpersonal collaboration
practices are essential to achieving patient centred care and safe nursing
practices. These practices include active listening, asking relevant
questions and focusing. However, there exist common hurdles to effective
communication such as lack of effective communication skills and in the
speciality areas, high workload, and cultural differences. These barriers
compromise the quality of safe nursing care and promoting patient
centred care leading to increased hospital readmissions and poor nurse-
patient relationship. interprofessional collaboration practice plays
significant roles in the delivery of patient centred care such as addressing
cultural and diversity issues and by ensuring that the patient and the
family are the centres of care by including them in the collaborative
process at each level. additionally, interprofessional collaboration practice
and patient care can be improved through two major communication
strategies namely provision of training in communication skills and the
establishment of routine, reliable, and secure forms of communication.

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References
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(2011). The

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