Effective Communication Skills in Nursing Practice

Running student: NURSING
Nursing
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1NURSING
Effective communication and presence of communication related competency is a critical
factor to excel in any discipline. In the field of nursing, effective communication is associated
with development of therapeutic relationship with patient and achieving positive patient
outcome. Good communication process helps to demonstrate courtesy and kindness to patient
and involve them in care (Kourkouta and Papathanasiou 2014). Hence, effective communication
process in nursing practice supports nurse to provide accurate and consistent nursing practice and
ensure patient’s satisfaction with care. This essay aims to give an insight into how application of
interpersonal communication skills of listening, feedback and questioning can provide benefit
during nursing practice.
Nurses are responsible to care for person with diverse communication styles and
language and they may need to extract much information from patient before developing care
plan for their health and recovery. To ensure that nurse have access to all patient’s information
related to risk factor of disease, medical history and preference for a particular treatment, having
interpersonal communication skill of listening is necessary. Listening skill is the ability to on use
of verbal and non-verbal skills to calmly listen to client’s perspective and use the information
gathered to resolve conflict (Labrague and McEnroe–Petitte 2017). For nurses, speaking with
patient and paying attention to interpret and comprehend verbal and non-verbal messages is an
example of effective listening skills. The significance of listening skill is that it supports nurse to
make proper assessment of patient’s problem and integrate those information to influence care at
all levels. Any uncertainties in care are also addressed by effective listening skills. This is in
relevance with the uncertainty reduction theory as it is based on the assumption that while
initiating communication interaction with strangers, the goal should be to increase predictability
and decrease uncertainty (Neuliep2017).

2NURSING
Active listening is the active level of listening during which complete attention is paid to
what the speaker is saying and interest is shown during the process by avoiding any disruption.
The main purpose of active listening is to gain information about feeling, content and intent of
the speaker. Use of verbal communication skills like effective questioning and non-verbal
communication skills like appropriate body movement and posture showing involvement, eye
contact, facial expression and summarizing speaker’s word are examples of effective listening
skills (Jahromi et al., 2016). Active listening is also beneficial in nursing practice to engage in
patient-centred care. This is said because listening skills comes under basics skills of patient-
centred communication process and by engaging in focused listening and avoiding interrupting
the patients, nurse can empower patients and gain access to patient’s preferences and opinion
related to care (Hashim 2017). This justifies why active listening skill is critical for nursing
profession.
Another important component of effective interpersonal communication process is the
use of questioning skills. It is the use of open ended and close ended question related to
individual client’s situation and applying that information to engage in problem solving and
decision making process ((Hashim 2017). Questioning skill is crucial in the field of nursing
practice to assess patient’s understanding about disease and seek further information to provide
safe and quality nursing care. To demonstrate effective interpersonal communication skill during
the process, it is necessary to provide time to patient after questioning. This will allow patient to
respond at their own space without feeling embarrassed (O'hagan et al., 2014). Hence, the main
argument behind the use of questioning skill in nurse-patient communication process is that it
will allow nurse to engage in accurate patient assessment and use the information to plan
interventions for patient. There are many evidence that supports benefit or positive experience