Therapeutic Communication Skills and Inter-Professional Collaboration

Therapeutic communication skills and inter-professional collaboration

PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
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Therapeutic communication skills and inter-professional collaboration
The term therapeutic communication refers to the face to face process which is
used in professional studies to communicate with the patients. Mainly, this process
focuses on the physical and emotional health of the patients and many nurses in health
care services uses therapeutic communication process for interacting with consumers
(Albers, Bonsignore, & Webb, 2018). Such kind of technique provides a platform to
health communities for achieving the patient centred care and secure nursing practice.
The goal of this essay is to analyse the importance of therapeutic communication skill
and inter-professional collaboration in patient centred care and safe nursing practice.
The inter-professional collaboration is defined as the process which is used by health
communities for developing health care team and monitoring the complex problems in
health care. This essay will describe the role of therapeutic communication and inter-
professional practice in patient centred care and barriers of effective communication in
nursing, and various communications strategies used in patient centred care.
Therapeutic communication is defined as the approach where nurses influence
the patients for better understanding through face to face communication. For achieving
the patient centred care and safe nursing practice therapeutic communication contains
the exchange of data and information on two major levels such as verbal and non-verbal
(Arnold, & Boggs, 2015). The verbal communication includes the arrangement of words
into sentences, context and content where the communication takes place which also
collects the social, physical and cultural environment. Non-verbal communication
contains the behaviour which indicated the requirement and thoughts of the patient.
There are major three components can be used in the therapeutic communication for
achieving the patient centred care such as physical communication, social or
psychological and temporal communication.
Mainly, it uses the interpersonal communication skill in order to gather safe
nursing practice and maintain the patient centred care. The skills needed in therapeutic
communication are delicate and far various as compare to those required in general
interpersonal communication (Brooker, & Waugh, 2013). In order to achieve the patient
centred care, the nurses should follow the rules and regulation and confidentiality
patient’s rights. They allow the consumers to express themselves freely and respect the

PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
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individual by taking into consideration the age, socioeconomic and age in respecting
personal space. It is analysed that the therapeutic communication required major five
levels such as interpersonal communication, small group communication, transpersonal
communication, public communication and intrapersonal communication.
The patient centred care for nurses and students can be achieved if consumers
and health care providers should promote safety and quality in the clinical setting and
interact with the patients by face to face communication (Davis Boykins, 2014). The
faculty and health care services also play a major role in the development and
achievement of patient centred care and therapeutic communication provides a
platform for the provision of care which includes the nursing practice and patient
information (Coufal, & Woods, 2018). There are few other techniques and skills that
required therapeutic communication to achieve the patient centred care and safe
nursing practice, for example, using silence, providing recognition, accepting, providing
broad openings, seeking clarification, and focusing on the patient’s problems and issues
related to their health.
It is observed thatthe effective communication skills are very important for
nurses that help them to understand the problems and issues faced by the patients.
Effective communication means information is conveyed efficiently between the
patients, friends and nurses. Such skills are not always evident and nurses in health care
communities do not interact well with individual and family members (Fay-Hillier,
Regan, & Gallagher Gordon, 2012). There are many barriers faced by the nurses in
effective communication, for example, language barrier, cultural differences, and setting
in which care is delivered. All these are very common barriers to effective
communication in nursing practice and impact on the patients’ health.
According to the world health organization the language difference between the
nurses and patients is a key barrier of effective communication (Gallagher, & Gallagher,
2012). When nurse and consumer do not transfer a common language then the
communication between them can be limited and strained. However, the patients may
fail to evaluate and understand the information and instruction provided by nurses and
it also impacts on their medicine and health. The culture difference is another barrier
faced by nurses and the culture of individual may reduce the effective communication