Training and Communication Strategies in Health and Social Care

This report provides a comprehensive overview of communication in health and social care, emphasizing the crucial role of effective communication in building relationships and improving patient care. It explores the importance of training healthcare professionals in communication skills, covering both formal and informal modes of interaction. The report delves into communication theories, including the humanistic and cognitive approaches, and discusses language appropriate for service users and professionals. It identifies barriers to effective communication, such as workload and environmental factors, and suggests strategies for dealing with interpersonal communication challenges, including intrapersonal skills. The report also addresses confidentiality, privacy, and protection, and outlines strategies to support individuals with special communication needs, including those with hearing or visual impairments, and those from different cultures. Various technological aids are also discussed. The assignment includes references to relevant studies and literature.

Training and Communication in Health and Social Care
Presented by:

Training on Communication in H and SC
• One of the important wings in health and social care is Effective
communication
• Effective communication helps in the development of caring and
engaging relationships with patients and the healthcare
providers
• In order to gain supreme expertise, proper training in the
domain of effective communication is required to be provided to
the healthcare professions at all levels And this will help to
improve the quality of care
• Effective communication signifies strict focus on both formal and
informal mode of communication with the service users
(Rajashree 2011)

Theory in H and SC
Humanistic approach
 The humanistic theory of communication projects communication as an undivided
unity
 It does not support the concept of dualistic analysis of language
 According to this communication style all the individuals will be gave same respect
care and thereby helping to develop unbiased approach in procuring service
(Andrulis and Brach 2007)
 Humanistic approach promotes : Person centred care
The main traits of person centred communication approach include
Empathy and empathic accuracy
Emotional intelligence and mindfulness
Proper measurement of person centeredness
(Hafskjold et al. 2015)

Theory in H and SC
Cognitive theory
Here the communication skills is acquired and then
modified further under the virtue of observation. It can also
be referred to as observational learning
A connection between the underlying human thoughts and
subsequent action must be taken into consideration before
communicating
Here cognitive skills and response of both the interactive
parties are taken into consideration towards framing
effective communication
(Andrulis and Brach 2007)

Language appropriate for the service users
Sympathise with the situation of the patients
Listening to each and every sentence of the
patient with utter patience
Maintaining eye-contact
Giving him proper information about his
current health status
Giving him hope and strength for fast
recovery
Development of close relationship with the
patients
(Andrulis and Brach 2007)

Language appropriate for the service
users
Respecting patients opinion in the decision
making process
Use of both verbal and non-verbal skills for
effective communication
Proper use of the intra-personal
communication skills while communicating
with the patients in order to increase the
level of comfort
(Andrulis and Brach 2007)

Language appropriate for the professionals and
purpose
To the point exchange of the relevant
information in regards to patient’s heath
Meaningful consultation
Effective communication and exchange
of information during change in shift
(Andrulis and Brach 2007)

6 Barriers to Communication
Heavy workload and Lack of adequate nurses in the ward which creates poor patients : nurse ratio
and thus creating time constrain in effective communication
Interference from family members: this creates a misunderstanding
Patient unaware regarding sharing his discomfort with the nurse and thus gap of information to
the healthcare professionals in the domain of patient’s need and thus hampering scope of
communication
Unsuitable environmental conditions: extreme noisy environment makes effective communication
difficult to achieve
Presence of critically ill patients inside the ward extracts much of the time of the nursing
professionals over that patients creating lack of proper care and effective communication with
other patients in the wards
Lack of co-ordination between the nurses creates gap of information during the change in shift
thus shift nurses might end up asking the same question to the patients which have been
previously addressed creating a sense of disgust among the patients
(Norouzinia et al. 2016)

Dealing with inappropriate interpersonal communication
Intrapersonal communication skills facilitates
Effective communication between patient and healthcare professionals
Generates positive health outcomes
Improves general health condition
To deal inappropriate intrapersonal communication a healthcare professional must
Listen actively to patient via maintaining eye contact and displaying a sense of respect
and empathy to patient
Deliver the patient correct set of information on time
Treat patient as an individual and respect his or her opinion via encouraging to
participate in the decision making process
(Beaulieu et al. 2011)

Confidentiality/Privacy/Protection
Confidentiality Negotiation System is based on five point model : who, what, where, when
and how
Who: Asking the patient regrading with whom the patient is willing to share this treatment
plan
Why: Asking the reason for considering that particular person a trustworthy candidate for
sharing health-related information
What? Asking the patient the pattern of information he wants to share with his chosen
members
Where and when? Asking the patient the preference of the place where he wants to discuss
his information . This should mostly be a private place
Negotiation: developing better patient-physician relations
(Petronio, et al. 2012)

Confidentiality/Privacy/Protection
 Privacy is distinct from confidentiality
 Privacy is the right of the clients to be alone a
 Protection deals with giving patients complete privacy
respecting the patients sense of autonomy
 It is the duty of the health and social care professionals to
protect the best interests of the patients
 (Petronio et al. 2012)

Strategies to Support individuals with special
communication needs
Patient with hearing disability
Installation of hearing aid: helps in hearing
Speaking slowly: helps the individual to lip read
Using sign language: Help in faster understanding
Maintaining eye contact: showing respect to the patients
Patient with eye sight problem
Use of spectacles: helping to deal with eye sight problems (myopia)
Responding to queries at once: make patients with eye sight problem
less impatient
Conservation via maintaining physical contact: Aids in sympathy
Use of brails: Suitable for patients who are blind
(Brock et al. 2013)

Strategies to Support individuals with special
communication needs
Patients from different culture
Assistance from the culturally competent nurse in
communication
Constant guidance from interpreter: it will help in aiding the
communication by translating the language spoken by the
client
Patients will specific communication needs
 Technological aid- Technological tools helpful in promoting
effective communication
 The utility of the communication tools are to be adjudged
based on the level education of the patient (Moss 2017)

Questions

References
Andrulis, D.P. and Brach, C., 2007. Integrating literacy, culture, and language to improve health
care quality for diverse populations. American journal of health behavior, 31(1), pp.S122-S133.
Beaulieu, M.D., Haggerty, J.L., Beaulieu, C., Bouharaoui, F., Lévesque, J.F., Pineault, R., Burge, F.
and Santor, D.A., 2011. Interpersonal communication from the patient perspective: comparison of
primary healthcare evaluation instruments. Healthcare Policy, 7(Spec Issue), p.108.
Berne, E., 2016. Transactional analysis in psychotherapy: A systematic individual and social
psychiatry. Pickle Partners Publishing.
Brock, D., Abu-Rish, E., Chiu, C.R., Hammer, D., Wilson, S., Vorvick, L., Blondon, K., Schaad, D.,
Liner, D. and Zierler, B., 2013. Republished: interprofessional education in team communication:
working together to improve patient safety. Postgraduate medical journal, 89(1057), pp.642-651.
Hafskjold, L., Sundler, A.J., Holmström, I.K., Sundling, V., van Dulmen, S. and Eide, H., 2015. A
cross-sectional study on person-centred communication in the care of older people: the
COMHOME study protocol. BMJ open, 5(4), p.e007864.
Moss, B., 2017. Communication skills in health and social care. Sage.
Norouzinia, R., Aghabarari, M., Shiri, M., Karimi, M. and Samami, E., 2016. Communication
barriers perceived by nurses and patients. Global journal of health science, 8(6), p.65.
Petronio, S., DiCorcia, M.J. and Duggan, A., 2012. Navigating ethics of physician-patient
confidentiality: a communication privacy management analysis. The Permanente Journal, 16(4),
p.41.
Rajashree, K.C., 2011. Training programs in communication skills for health care professionals
and volunteers. Indian journal of palliative care, 17(Suppl), p.S12.

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