Therapeutic Communication Skills and Inter-Professional Collaboration

Therapeutic communication skills and inter-professional collaboration practice are essential requirements for providing safe nursing care and promoting patient-centered care. This article discusses the importance of these skills, the core communication skills needed for patient-centered care, barriers to effective communication, and the benefits of inter-professional collaboration. It also provides strategies to enhance communication in healthcare teams.

Running head: THERAPEUTIC COMMUNICATION SKILLS 1
Therapeutic communication skills and inter-professional collaboration practice are essential
requirements for providing safe nursing care and Promoting Patient-Centered Care.
Student’s Name
University

THERAPEUTIC COMMUNICATION SKILLS 2
Therapeutic communication skills and inter-professional collaboration practice are
essential requirements for providing safe nursing care and Promoting Patient-Centered
Care.
Introduction
Patient-centered care is a new approach to quality provision of healthcare that every
practitioner needs to understand. This approach focusses on the specific health needs and the
desired health outcomes of the individual as the driving force for decision making and quality
measurements. The approach views patients as partners with health care providers where the
relationship between the patient and the provider changes from purely clinical to involve other
elements that are important to the recovery of the patient like emotional, social, spiritual and
even financial needs of the patient. The primary goal of this approach has been improving
individual health outcomes rather than population outcomes which in turn improves the
healthcare systems as well. Peplau theory sees therapeutic communication as the interaction
between the ill person and a practitioner who recognizes the needs of the individual and is able to
respond accordingly. To achieve this approach well, therapeutic communication skills are
required to ensure that there is a clear connection between the patient and the practitioner. Since
the practitioner goes beyond the clinical role, then therapeutic communication skills have to be
identified and at the same time, barriers that may hinder the approach addressed to achieve the
best results.
To be a successful practitioner in patient-centered care and nursing practice practitioners
need several core communication skills that can be applied in their area of work. One of these
skills is the use of reflection where the practitioner repeats the verbal and non-verbal messages to
show the patient that their feelings are being understood. Reflection creates a cognitive focus

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between the practitioner and the patient allowing the creation of empathy, interest, and respect
for the needs of the patient (Kim & Kate, 2008). On the other hand, the patient responds with
increased levels of communication and trust which improve the therapeutic process.
Another skill is exploring communication which is used to encourage the patient to open
up by creating an environment that makes the patient feel like the practitioner is following what
they are saying (Diedrick, Schaffer, & Sandau, 2011). For example, the practitioner uses phrases
like “Assist me to understand what happened”, to trace personal life issues of the patient which
enable gathering of adequate information for decision making.
Active listening through the use of verbal and non-verbal cues that encourage the patient
to continue talking is also an important communication required by practitioners. This includes
showing interest in the information that the patient seeks to communicate and acknowledging
that you are listening and understanding what they are saying (Kourkouta & Papathanasiou,
2014; Webster, 2013). The practitioner can also offer general leads by using certain statements to
guide the conversation thus making it easy to acquire relevant information.
The clarifying skill has also been regarded as important in therapeutic communication
since it assists the practitioner to understand the statements that the patient tries to communicate.
Thus the practitioner is supposed to seek clarification when information is not clear rather than
make conclusions based on clinical experience (Castledine, 2013). Since each individual presents
unique situations, patient-centered approaches require the practitioner to seek clarification
through paraphrasing the words of the patient in a manner that the practitioner has understood
and then requesting the patient to confirm the statement.
In addition to that, making observations is another important skill that the practitioner can
use to draw the attention of the patient to the areas that may be challenging. Such observations

THERAPEUTIC COMMUNICATION SKILLS 4
are good in making the patient justify why some signs or behaviors that they are showing exist.
This skill is helpful in gathering other indirect related issues within the life of the patient that can
be helpful in the individual-centered approach.
Apart from that, Boykins (2014) suggests that the confronting skill is applied by the
professional to acquire any other relevant information that the patient has not communicated.
This skill mostly applies when patients present challenges like arguing and challenging
assumptions drawn by the practitioner. In most cases, this shows that the individual may have
some attitude with the practitioner thus the need for the patient to be confronted so that the
information can be gathered.
Lastly, offering hope and humor is the closing skill that can be used to give hope that the
medical decisions being made will be helpful and that the role of the approach is to tailor patient-
care that seeks to meet the needs of the individual (Olsson, Ung, Swedberg, & Ekman, 2013).
Thus the patient needs to be encouraged to persevere with the situation and humor can be used to
increase rapport.
Apart from the relevant communication skills, there are barriers that affect effective
communication between the practitioner and the patient-centered care process. One major barrier
to effective communication is the practitioner inability to set boundaries within the therapeutic
process. Aghabarari, Mohammadi, & Varvani-Farahani (2009) suggest that in patient-centered
care, practitioners are required to establish a close bonds with the patient through developing
rapport to gather relevant information for decision making. However, this process requires the
ability to set professional boundaries so that practitioners can understand the limits and how far
they are supposed to go. For example, in confronting, offering hope and use of humor, the

THERAPEUTIC COMMUNICATION SKILLS 5
practitioner is supposed to ensure that the boundary limit is not broken for the therapeutic
process to be maintained.
Another barrier to effective communication is the lack of sufficient time for the
practitioner to apply the relevant skills when working with the patient. This means that the
practitioner requires enough time to explore each of the skills when dealing with the patient to be
able to generate the required information (Li, Ang, & Hegney, 2012). Thus when the time is
limited the practitioner may rush to confront the patient when indeed other skills like making
observations and seeking clarifications may still be applicable to the patient.
Further, Norouzinia, Aghabarari, Shiri, Karimi, & Samami (2016) view cultural
differences as one of the major barriers to communication. These barriers include age differences
between the practitioner and the patient, religious differences, and sometimes gender differences
which make the nature of communication different. This is because different cultural groups
have different views on the way they approach issues and how they open up. Thus when one
comes from different gender, religion or even age, some patients may find it difficult to open up
to such individuals because they believe that they fail to understand the cultural issues that relate
to the problems that they have.
To be successful in achieving patient-centered care process, practitioners need to
collaborate inter-professionally with others that work within the same environment. Proponents
if inter-professional collaboration practice view it as an approach to reduce inefficiencies in the
treatment of patients through cutting down the overlaps and redundancies in patient care. This is
seen from the fact that there is coordinated work where the team works together and share the
progress on the state of the patient thus increasing quality of care. Through proper
communication between the inter-professionals, medical errors can be reduced since each of the

THERAPEUTIC COMMUNICATION SKILLS 6
concerned practitioners is aware of the needs and requirements of the patient. The outcome of
this process is improved decision-making and increased information due to the collective sharing
of information.
Another relevance is seen in increased patient care which is seen in quantitative outcomes
like the reduced length of stay in the hospital, improved quality standards and compliance with
the relevant regulations. This is due to the consensus that is achieved between the professionals
thus making the teams more responsive, considerate and efficient to the patient-centered care.
In addition to that, it also increases patient engagement benefits like patient education and
participation in the care process. With these outcomes, behavioral changes in patient information
seeking or effective delivery of information are increased due to patient and practitioner
involvement in decision making. Morley & Cashel (2017) add that studies have also reported
increased patient safety as a benefit of inter-professional collaboration. Since safety and quality
of care are dependent on the environment, this implies that patient benefits are higher while risks
like errors are highly reduced. This means that patients are bound to benefit more through
professional collaboration since there are increased outcomes in the process.
Further, to achieve the best results in inter-professional collaboration, organizations need
to put in place communication strategies that can be used to enhance inter-professional
communication. Moss, Seifert, & O’Sullivan (2016) state that one of the strategies that can be
used to improve inter-professional communication is developing a communication plan within
the facility. Since collaboration brings together different practitioners who engage with patients
at different levels, then a communication plan needs to be designed to assist the team to set
expectations to shape the collective roles that each professional plays in the patient-centered care

THERAPEUTIC COMMUNICATION SKILLS 7
plan. This plan entails parameters, objectives, goals, and processes that shape the collaboration
between the professionals.
Another strategy is training the team in effective communication. Gluyas (2015) suggests
that since inter-professional communication requires that each professional participates in the
communication process, it is important that the team is trained to address poor communication
elements that can hinder the team. This training can be focused on information sharing between
professionals and at the same time working with the patient to achieve the individual-centered
approach. Thus practitioners need to be assisted to develop relevant communication skills that
can be applied to inter-professional collaboration.
In conclusion, therapeutic communication skills and inter-professional collaboration
practice are essential elements in achieving patient-centered care since they ensure that
practitioners have the right skills required for meeting the needs of the patient. Individualized
care approaches require the gathering of information from the patient through applying
communication skills that are relevant in ensuring that the therapeutic process is achieved
properly. Further, inter-professional collaboration is used to enhance safety care outcomes since
it ensures that the practitioners work together to deliver the best result for the patient.

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