Nursing Reflection on Building Therapeutic Relationship with Patients

Running head: NURSING REFLECTION
NURSING REFLECTION
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

NURSING REFLECTION1
Introduction:
The Australian Nursing Standards Assessment Tool (ANSAT) tool was developed to
evaluate the nursing practice in genuine situations and work place situation. This tool is also
used to outline the national and registered nursing standards, which can be implemented
within the nursing practice. The Australian Nursing Standards Assessment Tool (ANSAT)
tool was developed in the year 2016 (Sweet et al., 2018). Different data and information were
gathered from the registered nurse, health care providers, educators, stakeholders, nursing
students and academics that was used for the formulation of ANSAT tool. The NMBA
nursing standard 2 of the ANSAT tool, highlights that, every registered nurse must be
included in the therapeutic and professional association with the patient to deliver better care
and support to the patient (Nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au, 2019).
The essay will therefore focus on the barriers and challenges observed during the
association between the registered nurse and the patient in order to maintain a healthy
professional and therapeutic relationship based on the standard 2 of NMBA. Gibb’s reflective
cycle is used in the essay that will identify the analysis and evaluation procedure of nursing
and collect relevant information based on the learning of nursing engagement with the patient
(Smith & Roberts, 2015).
Description:
In the initial stage of Gibb’s cycle, the description revolving around the complete
incident was explained. During the tutorial classes, I was hypothetically assigned a case
scenario of the patient X (pseudonym), who was suffering from depression and was also
exhibiting the symptoms of schizophrenia. The patient belonged to the Aboriginal population
and could barely understand English. Hence, it was very difficult for me, as a nurse, to
communicate with him practically and understand his concern or what was bothering him and

NURSING REFLECTION2
affecting his mental health (Dauwan et al., 2015). After studying the case scenario, it was
identified that the major cause of his depression was his bad financial condition and poverty.
The patient was 40 years old and after his wife’s death he had nobody to take care of his
health and his children’s well-being. He also had Type 2 diabetes mellitus that was affecting
his health condition very badly.
Feeling:
Initially I was confused that if the patient could understand English and would be
supportive during his treatment procedure because the patient belonged to indigenous group
and could barely understand English and follow the instruction. Since, the patient was
suffering from depression it was very likely that he would forgot to take his medicines that
will be useful for evaluating his health condition and improvement. In order to identify the
risk factor it was very crucial that a healthy and friendly therapeutic relationship should
establish between the patient and me according to the standard 2 of ANSAT tool but the
language barrier was again a major concern (Reljic et al., 2017).
Standard 2 of ANSAT tool assist the nurses in effectively building a healthy
therapeutic relationship with the patient that will motivate the nurse to establish a quality
rapport and identify the risk factors leading to the bad heath condition of the patient
(Ossenberg, Dalton & Henderson 2016). Though the patient could barely understand English,
I was still very confident and positive that I can build a therapeutic relationship with the
patient in future when I will independently hand the patient and make the patient comfortable
during the entire treatment process. However, I also realised during my tutorial classes that it
was not easy for me to overcome the challenges and barriers, as language barrier is the major
challenge in maintaining a healthy therapeutic relationship with the patient. The major barrier