Strategy for Therapeutic Communication

Running Head: THERAPEUTIC COMMUNICATION
THERAPEUTIC COMMUNICATION
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

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Introduction
Therapeutic communication is a necessary component in the field of healthcare as it helps
to build a healthy relationship between patients, doctors and nurses. It has its several benefits in
understanding the choices and preferences of the patient. This report will discuss the strategies
and applications to use communication tools and therapeutic communication in the practical field
of nursing. Interpersonal communication is another aspect of therapeutic communication, which
is also an essential part as seen in the case study scenarios. Quality care and safety is a major
focus that is accomplished through effective communication in healthcare. A tool known as
SBAR tool will be used to achieve efficient communication between nurses and patients
including nurses and their fellow colleagues. The key information in this report will be about the
case study and the inconvenience caused due to wrong method of communication and how
proper planning and strategy linked to the codes of ethics and conduct could lead to a better
outcome.
Discussion
This case study is about a patient in an aged care facility where I was on a clinical
placement in the same facility. The name of the patient was Glen Potter who was a 94 year old
man with partial hearing loss, which made him wear a hearing aid. The assistant in nursing
(AIN) was my friend was requested me to assist her for showering Glen. I agreed to help her and
Glen removed his hearing aid for the shower. As we started with the process, the AIN received a
call from her son’s school and she had to immediately attend it so she left the washroom leaving
me all alone. This made Mr. Glen all stressed out as he thought the AIN left without washing
him. He started shouting at me that I was not able to wash him properly and in the meanwhile he

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grabbed the nozzle of the shower, and he started showering me with the water (Creighton,
Davison & Kissane, 2015). I tried to control the situation by trying to snatch the shower from his
hand and in the same time the AIN returned. She saw us in a shock and started asking loudly as
to what is happening, why is the patient shouting and why am I all wet. It is evident from this
situation that both the nurses were lacking in effective communication that led to all these
mishaps. It would have been better if the correct protocol was followed and the nursing standards
were maintained. The AIN should have given proper instructions to the nurse before leaving her
all alone with the patient when she was not aware about his exact condition. There is no presence
of any therapeutic communication, which should have been used because it is a common practice
in a healthcare system.
The concept of care are used for patients in a medical setting and it is also needed for this
case scenario. The appropriate concept of care will increase the effectiveness in therapeutic
communication, which is required for the patient and nurse in this case study. Care is the basic
foundation of nursing profession as the first priority is the welfare of the patient. As it is seen
that Glen Potter requires monitoring and assistance for his daily chores, which makes it
important to include the key concepts of care in this situation. There are 5 concepts of care that is
utilized by the nurses and it is known as caring as a human state, caring as an affect, caring as a
nursing intervention, caring as an interpersonal relationship, and caring as a moral imperative or
ideal. The care required here is caring as an interpersonal relationship and caring as a nursing
intervention. It is necessary to improve interpersonal relationship between employs that will help
in effective therapeutic communication leading to positive patient outcome. The nursing
interventions related to certain medical cases are also essential as a component of care because
the initiative taken by nurses according to the code of conduct and ethics will elevate the

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standard of care (Kangasniemi, Pakkanen & Korhonen, 2015). According to the code of conduct
and ethics by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, principle no 2 is person centred
care that looks after the nursing practice, which is applying evidence based practice and patient
centred care in their practice, it also focuses on decision making, which is the involvement of
healthcare professionals, patients and family members to deliver quality care and safety. The
third point in this principle is applying informed consent, which is the approval of the patient
regarding their treatment and the care plan. The fourth point is adverse events and open
disclosure, which means that the nurses should be open and honest in communicating with
patients when the healthcare has harmed any person due to adverse effects or emergencies.
Principle 3 is cultural practice and respectful relationships that includes promoting cultural
competence and respectful relationship between nurses and patients (Cashin et al., 2017). These
code of conducts should be applied in this case scenario as it shows that Glen needed to be taken
care of by the AIN and not left when he was taken for his shower. It was the irresponsibility of
the AIN to leave them at the moment, which led to the confusion and the patient shouted. The
physical ailments of a patient should be considered before planning any interventions or
implementations. The nurses should be careful about their roles and responsibilities as the
patients are completely dependent on them for their care. Therapeutic communication plays a
major role in this scenario because Glen started panicking after he saw his nurse was not present
for his shower and he thought that the new nurse will not be able to shower him properly. This
was avoidable only if the AIN would have efficiently done her work without getting disturbed by
the call. Her priority was the patient at the moment and even if she left under the care of another
patient, she should have instructed her properly about the whole process instead of just giving a
gesture that she is going to attend a call. This shows a discrepancy in communication between

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the two nurses (Philip et al., 2019). Therapeutic communication is also utilized for increasing
intra-professional and inter-professional relationships between nurses and patients.
The relevant strategies, skills and approaches needed for effective communication has to
be used for positive patient outcome. Some of the techniques of therapeutic communication
includes silence, active listening, focus, clarification, open ended questions, reflecting,
paraphrasing, restating, summarizing, offering of self and acknowledgment. These techniques
needed to be used between the nurse and the patient in this scenario (Negi et al., 2017). The
strategy implemented should be the practice of efficient communication between nurses and
patients and also nurses with other nurses so that they can collaborate together to deliver quality
care and service. This is possible through the use of communication tool, which is known as
SBAR tool (Randma et al., 2014). It is a systematic toll used between individuals to transfer
structure exchange of information that allows efficient communication in an assertive and
effective manner leading to reduction of repetition of errors. It consists of situation, background,
assessment and recommendation that is mostly used in healthcare organizations for the
betterment of patient care and enhancement of safety and quality. This will increase patient
satisfaction, which will lead to positive patient outcome (Bae & Fabry, 2014).
The skills of health literacy has to be used here so that the incident with Mr. Glen could
have been avoided. Health literacy is the concept of using various skills to enhance the capability
of people to understand and act on information to implement a healthier life. The skills used are
writing, speaking, critical analysis, listening, reading, numeracy and communication. After
implementing these skills it would be easier for the nurses to deal with Glen. The skills relevant
for this case scenario is communication and interaction skills, which was extremely necessary for
the patient and the nurse. If the AIN had communicated to the patient and the nurse properly then

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the situation would be different than what happened after she left (Twigg et al., 2016). This is the
appropriate implementation of health literacy skills as it is an essential component for nurses and
people in general. The health literacy is divided into 3 levels and it is known as basic,
communicative and critical.
Conclusion
This report will be concluded by summarizing the case scenario and the ineffective
communication that took place. The nurses need to become more responsible in following their
protocol and taking care of patient. As Mr. Glen was an old man with hearing loss he needed to
be prioritized more as he needed more attention and care. An effective communication would
have saved the situation by decreasing the humiliation of the nurse who was present and the
panic struck behavior of the patient. All this was easy to avoid if the proper tool of
communication and code of conduct and ethics was applied in their practice. The AIN and the
nurse needs to practice more of therapeutic communication by utilizing them with their patient.

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