PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT AND COMMUNICATION.

Running head: PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT AND COMMUNICATION
Professional Conduct and Communication
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT AND COMMUNICATION
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Theory in relation to Active Listening Skills.............................................................................2
Theory in relation to Questioning skills.....................................................................................4
Theory in relation to Body Language........................................................................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................8

PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT AND COMMUNICATION
Introduction
The following essay deals with professional conduct and communication. According
to Kangasniemi, Pakkanen and Korhonen (2015), professional conduct and communication is
an important part of nursing practice. As per the professional standards published in the
Nursing and the Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) (2018), a nurse is required to
practice within their boundary of the professional code of conduct and must effectively
communicate with the patients and the physicians in order to improve the overall quality of
care. The following essay will emphasise on the importance of the inter-personal
communication skills (verbal and non-verbal communication) in the healthcare sector and
how it helps to improve the overall health outcome of the patients. The essay will mainly
critically analyse a 308 interview conducted between a healthcare professional and a
healthcare service users. The critical analysis of the interview will based on three pillars,
active listening, questioning skills and body language. The overall analysis will help to
evaluate the importance of effective communication in the healthcare domain and how the
effective communication skills can be improved further. The overall interview set-up is
fictions and the name of the interviewer and the interviewee will be kept with-held in order to
ensure confidentiality and privacy (Kangasniemi, Pakkanen & Korhonen, 2015).
Theory in relation to Active Listening Skills
Communication is one of the important parts in health care. This skill is not restricted
to speaking or writing, listening is also an important part of communication. In healthcare,
communication must be executed by the healthcare staffs by detailed concentration and this is
known as active listening. Active listening helps to promote effective communication
(Jahromi et al., 2016). Shendurnikar and Thakkar (2013) are of the opinion that active
listening means listening with complete attention while showing interest and reducing the

PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT AND COMMUNICATION
interruption. Active listening does not occur in hurried communication between two persons.
Active listening helps improve the level of patient’s satisfaction and overall outcome of care
via reducing the chances of medical errors and increasing the provision for the patient centred
care ((Jahromi et al., 2016).
In the video, the interviewer also showed poor active listening skills.
Instance 1: (1:00 minutes)
Interviewer: "And your date of birth?"
Interviewee: "18th August 1998"
Interviewer: "18th August 1988...oh 1998". The interviewee corrects her
Instance 2: (49 seconds)
Interviewer "And your last name?"
Interviewee: "Piong"
Interviewer: Spells and write, "Poang"
The above two instances are examples of poor active listening skills because, the
interviewer had recorded incorrect spelling of the surname of the service user (interviewee)
and the interviewer was noting incorrect year of birth of the service user, later, the
interviewee herself corrected it. Both the instances are example of recording wrong patient’s
information. According to Ehsani et al. (2013), wrong personal identification information
about the patient can give rise to medication error. Medication error leads to increase in the
overall length of stay at the hospital along with increase in the overall cost of care. James
(2013) further highlighted that the medication dosage varies with the age and body mass
index of the patient, such that incorrect tabulation of the patient will lead to incorrect

PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT AND COMMUNICATION
estimation of the medication dosage leading to increase in the chances of medication error.
According to Kourkouta and Papathanasiou (2014) development of the conscious signs of
communication and listening attentively helps to increase the active listening skills among the
nursing professionals. The nurses are required to practice active listening skills under the
detailed supervision of the senior nursing professionals in order to refine their skills further.
Improvement of the active listening skills helps to improve effective communication.
Theory in relation to Questioning skills
According to Phillips, Duke and Weerasuriya (2017) questioning skills plays an
important role in nursing profession. Phillips, Duke and Weerasuriya (2017) are of the
opinion that good questioning skills means ability to think critically. Critical thinking is an
integral part of the decision-making skills of the nursing professionals and it increases the
provision for safe and quality care for the patient. Zuriguel Pérez et al. (2015) are of the
opinion that effective questioning skills of the nursing professionals helps to increase the
patient’s participation in the care plan. Increase in the patient’s participation in the care plan
helps to devise patient-centered care plan.
Examples of poor questioning skills
Instance 1
Interviewer: “How old are you?”
Interviewee: “I had just turned 20” (1: 05 minutes)
Explanation: Apparently, the question seems to be perfect but just before asking this
question, the interviewer asked her date and year of birth. So asking date of birth is enough to
gauge the age of the person, still the interview enquired about her age. This can be regarded
as a redundant question.

PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT AND COMMUNICATION
Instance 2
Interviewer: “What is your primary language?”
Interviewee: “We speak Chinese”
Interviewer: Are you from China?”
Interviewee: “I am from Malaysia... But I speak English as well, but we mainly speak
Chinese”
Interviewer: “O..beautiful...o do you need any interpreter for your....”
Interviewee: “No”
Interviewer: “So you can speak and understand very well”
(3:49 to 3: 56 minutes)
Explanation
Asking whether, the interviewee is comfortable in the English language (language of
the interview) must be the first and the foremost question before the conduction of the
interview process. Conducting half of the interview in English and then asking whether the
interviewee is comfortable in English or whether he or she needs an interpreter seems to be
futile.
Other instances of the poor questioning skills can be traced throughout the interview
process. For example, the interviewer was fumbling before asking question (2:53 minutes).
According to Phillips, Duke and Weerasuriya (2017), fumbling can be regarded as a bad
interview skills, it hampers the flow of the interview and develops a negative perception of
interviewer in the mind of the interviewee. Innes (2013) are of the opinion that the asking

PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT AND COMMUNICATION
redundant question not only increases the time of the interview but also hampers the patience
of the patient. This approach hampers the process of developing therapeutic relationships
with the patient. De Meester et al. (2013) stated that use of the SBAR (situation, Background,
Assessment, and Recommendation) protocol helps to improve the effective communication
and the questioning skills of the nursing professionals. This is because, it provides a detailed
lay-out of the questionnaire avoiding the chances of making mistakes.
Theory in relation to Body Language
According to Berger (2014), nursing professionals are required to nurture proper
inter-personal communication skills. Inter-personal communication skills mainly constitute of
both verbal and the non-verbal communication skills. Body language falls under the non-
verbal communication skills. Under the body language, a nursing professional is required to
maintain an attentive posture with and direct eye contact with the patient while the
conduction of the interview or interacting with the patient. Maintenance of the proper body
language promotes active listening and it also makes the interviewee or the patient to feel that
the interview is concerned about his or her condition and its connecting with his or thought
process. This increases the patient’s involvement in the interview process (Berger, 2014).
During the interview process (45 seconds to 1: 50 minutes), the interviewer was more
engrossed in noting down the personal details of the interviewee than listening to her words
actively via maintaining direct eye-contact. Thus proper body language was not maintained.
According to maintenance of proper body language is an important part of the
effective listening and communication process. Proper use of the body language helps to
promote therapeutic relationship with the client (Lin et al., 2013). In order to promote active
listening, it is better to record the interview process in audio-recorded and then convert the
interview process into written transcript after the completion of the interview. McCarthy,

PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT AND COMMUNICATION
Trace and O'Donovan (2014) recommend getting the transcript checked by the interview in
order to eradicate any chances of errors and other ethical complications. McCarthy, Trace and
O'Donovan (2014) further recommended training in the domain of the active listening skills
under the supervision of the experienced yet trained nursing professional. McCarthy, Trace
and O'Donovan (2014) also highlighted that the use of the standardised patient’s feedback on
an immediate basis and group discussion to teach inter-personal communication skills will
help to improve the body language skills of the all the healthcare professionals with a special
mention to the nursing professionals.
Conclusion
Thus from the above discussion, it can be concluded that communication and active
listening is an important part of healthcare domain. The analysis of the interview video
highlighted that the interviewer lacked the proper questioning, active listening skills at some
of time in the interview process. The critical analysis also highlighted that the interviewer
also failed to maintain proper body language. All these three skills fall under the inter-
personal communication skills and in order to refine the skills, the interview or the healthcare
professionals must take training under the supervision of senior professionals. In case of
nursing profession, the nursing professional must attain training under the registered yet
trained nurses who have significant experience in this filed. Other approaches which can be
used for this purpose include use of the SBAR questioning tool in order to improve the
communication and questioning skills.

PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT AND COMMUNICATION
References
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De Meester, K., Verspuy, M., Monsieurs, K. G., & Van Bogaert, P. (2013). SBAR improves
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PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT AND COMMUNICATION
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PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT AND COMMUNICATION
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