Reflective Essay: Interpersonal Communication and Healthcare Barriers

This reflective essay delves into the critical role of interpersonal communication in healthcare, specifically focusing on the challenges and improvements observed in a student's experience. The essay highlights the importance of effective communication, especially in the context of a diverse patient population where language barriers can significantly impact patient care. It explores the need for nurses to develop strong public speaking and presentation skills to communicate effectively with patients, their families, and colleagues. The essay emphasizes the importance of training programs that address both language barriers and public speaking, ultimately aiming to enhance the nurse-patient relationship and ensure high-quality healthcare delivery. The student reflects on personal growth in these areas, acknowledging areas for improvement to become a more competent healthcare professional. The essay references key studies on communication barriers in healthcare, emphasizing the need for ongoing development in this essential skill set.

Running Head: REFLECTIVE ESSAY - INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION 1
Title: Reflective Essay: Interpersonal Communication
Name:
Institution:

REFLECTIVE ESSAY: INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION 2
Introduction
The first and second week was different in the way issues presented themselves.
However, I felt a great deal of improvement over this time as I was able to handle issues during
the second week that would have been a challenge during the first week. Most importantly, I was
able to improve in critical areas of communication which I feel will be critical in future.
Communicating over language barriers
Communication is an essential ingredient of providing high quality healthcare to patients.
Nurses are the front line staff involved in meeting and engaging patients on their illness and the
process to help them gain health. Several countries around the world are becoming more
cosmopolitan, with cities in particular being populated by people who speak different languages.
It is upon the nurse and their managers to help them better reach through these barriers and get
the message across, while properly understanding the needs of the client. Poor patient – nurse
relationships can be traced in part to the inability to properly communicate with their patients.
This may be to attitude problems, but it may also be the result of language barriers (Norouzinia
et al, 2016).
The focus of nursing also has a role to play in ensuring that effective communication is
achieved. Nurses may focus more on the clinical aspect of their job, administering medicine as
needed and advising doctors on the specifics of the patient’s health. However, this negates the
bigger part of their work, of engaging the patient and ensuring that their needs are met, and that
they understand this. The issues therefore involves not only training, but raising awareness and
interest among nurses on the kind of a workplace that they will be operating in, and thereafter
equipping them with the necessary skills to help them better care for the patients (Norouzinia et
al, 2016)

REFLECTIVE ESSAY: INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION 3
Miscommunication in healthcare is one of the most dangerous issues in the sector. Nurse
misunderstanding a doctor or the patient may expose the patient to the wrong medication or
wrong procedures, severely threatening their wellbeing. One of the most common sources of this
is the language barriers that exist between various players in the industry, including physicians,
nurses and the patients themselves. Research in Australia suggests that nurses who speak second
languages are more likely to make communication mistakes since they use English as their
weaker language Meuter et al, 2015).
The issue is the same when the roles are reversed. The nurses should be assisted in better
understanding communication in other languages. This is especially important because language
comes with specific cultural norms that affect communication. For instance, communicating with
Chinese patient may include nonverbal communication which the nurse is expected to
understand so that they can sufficiently get all the information that the patient is communicating.
In the United States, a large minority of the patients is Hispanic. It would therefore help if
hospitals were to include communication training specifically targeting this so as to better equip
nurses to communicate better (Meuter et al, 2015).
Public speaking and presentation
Nurses need to use presentation and public speaking skills in a wide array of settings.
This may include talking to the patient and their loved ones, speaking during meetings, and
handover of patients. The issue of public speaking is sensitive for many people, who may not be
able to muster the courage required to stand in front of people, and then properly articulate their
issues in a clear and concise manner. Doing this requires a lot of practice, preparation and the
right attitude. According to Baker (2016), public speaking needs the speaker to replace any
lingering fear they have with self confidence and a sense of accomplishment. In learning about

REFLECTIVE ESSAY: INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION 4
public speaking, the author draws attention to ancient Greek principles of ethos and logos. In
short, she counsels nurses to ensure that while they are able to get their message across properly,
they should accompany it with the right amount of passion and persuasion to ensure that it is
well understood by the listener.
While communication is an integral part of the interaction between the nurse and the
patient, it is also crucial between nurses and their colleagues and other medical personnel. Nurses
are usually likely to encounter difficulty in communicating with other people, especially if their
training has overly focuses on the clinical aspects of their job. To rectify this, training is
required. Communication skills training should encompass not only the language barriers
communication, but public speaking and presentation skills as well (Bramhall, 2014).
To become an effective public speaker, the nurse needs to grow in terms of confidence.
They also need to be properly trained in terms of their treatment of the audience. The role of
public communication is primarily to pass information. It is therefore critical that this is not lost
on the public speaker. Training should focus on that. The articulation of issues should consider
the sensitivities of the people involved, so that issues better expressed in private are not made the
subject of a public presentation (Bramhall, 2014).
Conclusion
During the period of compiling the journal, the importance of communication was
evident. I felt that I performed well, but there is still progress to be made in communicating over
language barriers and public speaking. These two aspects will help make one a more complete
nurse, while ensuring better service delivery to the patient.

REFLECTIVE ESSAY: INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION 5
References
Baker, J. (2016). Presentation Skills: a necessity for perioperative nurses. AORN Journal,
published online, DOI: 10.1016/j.aorn.2016.12.016.
Bramhall, E. (2014). Effective communication skills in nursing practice. Nursing Standard,
29(14), 53-59.
Meuter, R. et al. (2015). Overcoming language barriers in healthcare: a protocol for investigating
safe and effective communication when patients or clinicians use a second language.
BMC Health Services Research, 15(371), DOI: 10.1186/s12913-015-1024-8.
Norouzinia, R. et al. (2016). Communication barriers perceived by nurses and patients. Global
Journal of Health Science, 8(6), 65-74.