Therapeutic Communication: Skills, Barriers, and Interprofessional Collaboration for Patient-Centered Care

Running head: THERAPEUTIC COMMUNICATION
THERAPEUTIC COMMUNICATION
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1THERAPEUTIC COMMUNICATION
Therapeutic communication can be defined as the process that involves
communication techniques, which are used by nursing professionals for promoting the well-
being of patients. Therapeutic communication helps nurses to gain the trust of the patients
and develop strong bonds with the patient and has positive outcomes on health of the
patients. Developing inter-professional collaboration with patients and members of
healthcare teams also ensures safe and quality patient centred care that increases patient
satisfaction (Boykins, 2014). This assignment would try to shed more light on the skills of
therapeutic communication and the different barriers that can disrupt therapeutic
communication with patients. It would also discuss in details about the role of
interprofessional collaboration practice for ensuring patient centred care as well as the
strategies which when implemented can help in achieving such care.
Empathy and compassion are two non-verbal communication attributes that need
to be expressed by the nurses while managing the health concerns of patients (Bramhall,
2014). Studies opine that when patients believe that a nurse cares about them, understands
them and thereby feels concerned for them, then a clear communication channel is
developed that helps in strengthening individualised care (Brownie, Scott & Rossiter, 2016).
Nurses need to demonstrate courtesy, kindness as well as sincerity and should devote more
and more time to patients during communication (Kourkouta & Papathanasiou, 2014). It has
been also found that when nursing professional exhibit empathy and compassion while
communicating with the patient, the latter feels comfortable. The patients successfully
overcome anxiety and stress that associates the ill health and being admitted to an alien
healthcare environment. Another important therapeutic communication skill is active
listening. Active listening can be described as the pattern of listening attentively while a
patient speaks, paraphrasing and reflecting back about what is said and withholding any
form of judgement and advice (Prince & Kelley, 2017). While communicating with patients,
nurses should listen attentively to patients providing they full freedom and authority to
speak without interrupting them and cutting them in between. This helps the patients to
believe that nurses are genuinely interested in their care and that they are trying their best
to understand their needs and requirements (Haley et al., 2017). When nurses allow the
patient to narrate everything they want to say, the chances of missing out important

2THERAPEUTIC COMMUNICATION
information about the patient decreases and the needs and expectations of the patients
also can be recognised successfully. This not only helps in providing safe and quality care but
also enhances patient satisfaction (Drahosova & Jarsova, 2016). The non-verbal skills of
touch and silence are also found to be important during therapeutic communication. Using
touch is often considered one of the most potent forms of communication. Comfort touch
like that of holding hands is especially found to be highly effective to vulnerable clients who
are experiencing severe illness. It develops a sense of personal attachment where the
patients feel comfortable and develop the capability of adjusting with the foreign
environment. At the same time, they also gain hope of speedy recovery with the
companionship of the nursing professional. Under certain circumstances, an accepting as
well as attentive silence may be preferable to a verbal response and nurses therefore need
to develop this core therapeutic communication skill (Bassett et al., 2018). This allows the
nurses in temporarily slowing down the pace of the conversation and gives the scope to the
patients in reflecting upon and speaking further about their feelings. In addition, silence
helps nurses in observing the patients for non-verbal clues and in assembling their thoughts.
Sharing hope, humour as well as feelings helps in strengthening the relationships between
patients and nurses and hence such skills need to be developed by nurses. Hagan et al.
(2013) further contributes this knowledge that nurses need to ensure four important
aspects of communication to develop therapeutic relationship with patients and these are
correct approach to patient care, appropriate manner to service users, effective techniques
of interaction with patients and generic aspects of communication.
Often nurses while trying to engage in therapeutic communication with patients can
face various barriers. One of them is excessive work-burden and subsequent feeling of
burnout that nurses might develop while working in the healthcare wards. Nurses are
responsible for not only the comprehensive care of patients but also they are also
responsible for completing the paper-works, ensuring cleanliness of the wards, discharge
procedures, delegation, patient education and many others. Moreover, increases cases of
chronic disorder ailments had also burdened the nurses with more work pressures as
demands of services by patients have increased. Burnouts, tiredness and fatigue might act
as a challenge for ensuring therapeutic communication where the will and the time to
communicate with patients are compromised (Kollar, 2016). Language barrier and cultural