Challenges and Barriers in Therapeutic Relationship with Patients

Running Head: NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Nursing Assignment
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Introduction:
The Australian Nursing Standards Assessment Tool (ANSAT) is a tool that is used to
define the registered and national standard that can be implemented in their nursing practice and
is formulated in 2016. The ANSAT tool has been formulated with data gathered from nurse,
educators, academics, health care providers, nursing students and the stakeholders. The standard
2 of the ANSAT tool of the NMBA registered nursing standard, states that, every nurse should
be involved in professional and therapeutic relationship with the patient in order to provide better
care to the patient (Cdu.edu.au, 2019).
This essay focusses on the challenges and barriers that has been observed by the
registered nurse while engaging in therapeutic and professional relationship with the patient.
Reflection in the nursing helps in evaluating and analysing our own experiences or help to gather
learning from the previous learning. This essay includes reflection on my previous experiences
while engaging in the therapeutic relationship by using Levitt-jones Gibbs cycle.
Description:
In the first stage of the Gibbs cycle, description of the whole incident is explained
(Sekarwinahyu et al., 2019). During my nursing placement, I was assigned to take care of an
elderly patient named A (pseudonym) who has been suffering from dementia and also showing
certain signs of depression. The patient belong to the indigenous population of Australia and can
only speak her native language and feels uncomfortable with English. The patient has been
suffering from moving disability and can move with the help of walking aids. After examining
the patient condition, it is evaluated that the blood pressure of the patient is increased (140/ 90)
which is more than the normal blood pressure (120/80). The health of the patient is deteriorating

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day-by-day as she usually skips her medication due to dementia and also does not follow the
suggested diet. She has nobody with her who can take care of her as her husband died a few
years ago and only has a son, who lives away with his family.
Feeling:
As this was the first time, I was handling an elderly patient who has been suffering from
dementia and have been posing initial signs of depression. Initially, I was nervous but decided to
use best of my clinical knowledge in order to provide enhanced care to the patient. After
evaluating the medical history of the patient, I analysed that patient has high risk of getting into
depression and hence one of the best method to improve the health condition of the patient is to
acknowledge the risk factor that are involved for depression which can only be achieved by
maintain a therapeutic relationship with the patient according to the standard 2 of the ANSAT
tool I though this is one of the best way to gather knowledge about her pains and worries which
is deteriorating her health condition.
Communication is one of the most important tool that can be used to form a quality
rapport with the patient and to maintain a therapeutic and professional relationship with the
patient (Houglum, 2016). I was extremely confident about my communication skill and hence
thought that making a professional relationship with the patient would not be difficult. However,
later I felt that it is not that easy and there are certain barriers and challenges which produces
hindrance while maintaining therapeutic relationship with the patient. One of the most major
barrier identified is the language barrier as the patient only speaks her native language.