Communication Strategies for Nurses: A Case Study of Patient Care

This report delves into the critical role of effective communication within the nursing profession, emphasizing its significance in fostering trust, patient engagement, and quality care. Through a detailed case study involving a patient named Nancy and her family, the report explores various communication strategies, including psychosocial and cultural context techniques, patient education, personalized care, and online communication. It analyzes how these strategies can be employed to gather crucial information, build strong patient-nurse relationships, and provide holistic care. Furthermore, the report examines the communication techniques essential for handling end-of-life situations, such as willingness and clarity, assessment of understanding, and addressing patient and family goals. It highlights the importance of multidisciplinary teams in supporting families through grief and loss, offering insights into how nurses can navigate sensitive conversations and support patients and their families during challenging times. The report stresses the need for nurses to be mindful of the patient's vulnerability, organizational structures, and the importance of patient-centered communication.

Running head: NURSING
Nursing
Name
Institution

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HEALTH NURSING
Introduction
Effective communication is very important in the nursing profession and healthcare
services. First, for the purposes of trust and responsibility the nurse should initiate effective
communication. Effective communication fosters patient engagement and is linked to very many
benefits including patient and nurse satisfaction. It is through effective communication during
health care services that quality care is achieved. It is also through effective communication that
the health professional can monitor patient adherence to treatment and any improved physical
outcomes. Communication in a health care setting is also important in helping the professional
understand the background of the disease and any related background. Negative communication
strategies and techniques might lead to patient withholding information which might not be
relevant to the situation that exists at hand. Patriarchal techniques and medical jargon are
discouraged to be applied in hospital scenarios considering they orient the patient into particular
thoughts that might not yield the required results. It is also discouraged for medical personnel to
orient the content of the discussion towards symptoms without considering social background
factors of the medical condition in question (Moser, 2016). Dismissal of psychosocial report
being given by patients always leads to medical personnel eventual loss. Such experiences by
patients make them feel frustrated, helpless and unrecognized. They feel they are not part of the
decision made at the end of the situation. To the worst scenarios some patients even withdraw
from the treatment plan, arguing that they were not part of it even in the start. From the Case
study provided, this paper will derive ways in which a health care personnel should have used
various communication techniques to effectively derive important and relevant information that
should have helped in providing a lasting solution to Nancy and the family.

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Discussion
The best communication strategies to employ in the case study involving Nancy, the
family and the multi-disciplinary team include but are not limited to the following; psychosocial
context technique, cultural context technique, patient educations, personalized care and
reassurance strategy and online communication strategy. Discussing about adoptions is the first
technique towards finding a treatment plan to help Nancy is soliciting relevant psychosocial
context as a communication technique (Mullen, Reynolds, & Larson, 2015). Nancy should be
encouraged to talk about psychosocial factors that are related to her condition. Psychosocial
contexts provide a non-judgmental atmosphere which will make Nancy and the family
comfortable during the stay and the duration that they are in the hospital. The family through
such a relationship can open up about other social issues that are disturbing them. It is through
this strategy that the health care personnel understand how to deal with Nancy and the family. It
is the strategy that will create a good patient-nurse relationship between the two groups. (Newell,
& Jordan, 2015).
A second communication strategy includes tailoring all the communications to be made
to Nancy’s family to cultural contexts that they can understand. For instance: communicating to
Nancy while alluding to her Buddhist culture would help elevate the information even further.
Same technique can also be used while communicating to the family. For the interest of Nancy’s
case, the nurse has to develop a little cultural awareness and understanding of the Buddhists
culture. This will help in channeling and tailoring communications appropriately to each of the
culture. It is important that the nurse communicates through the cultural context strategy because
failure to do so might lead to mistrust and inadvertently giving offense to the family and Nancy
who is the immediate victim. Another communication strategy that could work is the nurse-

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patient education format. The education format involves teaching family and the affected
individual about best care practices and responsible treatment stewardship (Jensen et al., 2015).
Best practices involve actions that when taken by the patient and the family it makes treatment
even easier. In this case, the patient in care is suffering from cancer. The family and she should
be taught how to take care of her through best practices which will eventually lead to her healing.
The stewardship strategy of communication is taught to one of the family members preferably
the husband. The knowledge of stewardship is to help the family administer treatment even in
the absence of the health care personnel (Henderson, Barker, & Mak, 2016). At times screening
procedures is quite stressful and the patient demands support. It is for such disease best practices
that there is need to involve the family in the communication strategy of stewardship.
Additionally, there is the communication strategy of online information resource (Henderson, &
Fletcher, 2015). Trough this strategy the client and the nurse communicate through online
platforms on their phones, computers, laptops or tablets. The portals contain the medical
condition, for Nancy’s case cancer. The portal also contains the recommended treatments and
upcoming procedures. Authenticated family members are able to access the portal and see the
progress of the patient (Hargie, 2016). The assigned nurse can also access the portal and
communicate important information to the family and the patient. The online strategy normally
works in situation where physical contacts are minimized. For the case of Nancy the online
strategy might be the least used communication strategy.
Before, during and after the process of communication, there are particular things that the
professional has to bear in mind in relation to the situation or the case study that is being
handled. In the case of Nancy the family, the nurse in attendance should bear the following in
mind before, during or even after communication. To begin with, sense of vulnerability of the

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news to be communicated and its impact is something to bear in mind (Giske, & Cone, 2015).
Sense of vulnerability is the feeling of exposure that the patient or the family experience in terms
of physical and psychological harm. In the case of Nancy, she is vulnerable. The effect he gets
from the chemotherapy drugs exposes her so much to such. It is advisable that with such
vulnerability the nurse avoids non-intimate communication. In any emotional issues it is
important that the entire family of Nancy is involved in taking important decisions.
A second factor to bear in mind is organizational structure (Gilstrap, & White, 2015).
Some health facilities require communication to be given to a patient or a client by the
professional attending directly to the patient. However, other facilities would rather prefer
communication to be done by senior specialist in the hospital. It is; therefore, clear to consider
organizational structure and its policies on how they communicate important information to the
family of a patient. Some hospitals even prefer to communicate through a hospital counseling
unit. The attending nurse will therefore only give little amount of information to the affected
family (Flo et al., 2016). Lastly it is important to bear in mind the perception of the professional
self. Professional self would mean communicating to the patient information that is patient
centered. Patient centered communication means releasing information to the patient as they
want to hear it (Bennett, 2017). The nurse should provide a holistic view of what the family of
Nancy and close associates should expect as it is. It will require the attending nurse to have self-
confidence and expert knowledge in order to communicate effectively to the family. As
explained the things to bear in mind within the communication process of the instance presented
include; vulnerability of the information, structure of the organization and patient centered
information.

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End of a life normally leaves most families in trouble and searching for answers for very
many questions. In the case of Nancy, the family is in grief of the end of life of Nancy, and they
are asking a lot of questions. The husband is concerned about their plans together, while the
children are in grief over the loss of their mother (Johnson, & Bott, 2016). The family is also
concerned about her elderly parents. In a nutshell, the family is dealing with a loss moment
depending on their relationship with the deceased. In such situations particular communication
techniques can be used by the nurse with intentions of reducing the impact of grief that the
family is undergoing (Arnold, & Boggs, 2019). The first communication technique is willingness
and clarity. It is important for the nurse and doctors communicating the EOL situation to the rest
of the family to exploit the willing and clarity technique. This technique involves making the
affected ready to engage in conversation touching on end of life issues. It involves making the
family regard end of life treatment choices as the nurse helps them through. The nurse should
feel comfortable talking to the family about the end of life issues. This communication technique
is supposed to help the affected members of the family by allowing them not to cringe and leave.
Willing technique is normally very effective when applied as early as the patients dying
trajectory (MacLean, Kelly, Geddes, & Della, 2017). Communication failure will be considered
the moment willingness as a communication technique is delayed. The family might undergo
pain and shock with very little time to prepare for loss of life. Clarity as a communication
technique involves presenting the family with facts but in a comforting way. Clarity involves
comforting the family and allowing them time to open up through holding long conversations
with them. Clarity as a communication technique might be very relevant in helping the elderly
parents of Nancy cope with the situation. The technique might also work for the husband
Thomas.

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Another technique that can be used to communicate EOL to the family is assessment of
understanding (Anderson et al., 2016). Assessment of understanding is done by the nurse in
trying to communicate to the family the condition of the patient. It is through the assessing
understanding technique that close relatives are asked to observe incorporated behaviors into
their daily practice (Adams,, Mannix, & Harrington, 2017). This technique helps the nurse or the
medical personnel demystify any rumors from the family regarding the patient’s condition. It is
important that the nurse corrects the misconceptions about the condition early enough. Dismissal
of misconceptions early enough helps the family come to terms with their loss. This
communication technique applied to the family also helps trigger plans that spouses might have
and create another plan of achieving the same with the loss of their partner. Thomas, Nancy’s
husband should be communicated to using this technique. However, with this technique caution
should be taken to avoid assumptions. The nurse should not assume that the family understands
the condition of the patient as she does or better than she does. The nurse should explain every
instance and allow the family to ponder over the situation as the information communicated sinks
in. Within a short time the family will accept the EOL of one of them.
The last communication technique is assessing patient and family goals and expectations.
This technique allows the nurse to reconcile the family goals that can be achieved even with the
loss of one of them. It helps the family move on from the grief of the loss of life by shifting their
focus to goals that they need to achieve. In depth communication through this technique helps
the affected appreciate the things they can do while alone without help. The assessing patient and
family goals can be used as a communication technique to the two children of Nancy. It can
easily make them move on.

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Another way of helping the family deal with grief and loss is through multidisciplinary
teams. Multidisciplinary teams are promoted means that enable all practitioners in the health
department to collaborate successfully with the aim of achieving a successful health care
promotion. It provides sufficient diversity of professionals that deal with different disciplines,
suitable leadership and team dynamic (Massey, Chaboyer, & Anderson, 2017). For the case of
bereavement and loss MDT helps the family of Nancy through providing person to person
exchange based on identification and reciprocity. By identification and reciprocity, the idea is for
the children affected they can be counseled by a mother figure from the MDT group who
understands their plight. Additionally, to the rest of the family including the elderly parents they
are able to cope based on the coping techniques provided to them by optimal functioning fellow
affected elders. MDT provides a platform to open up our sorrows to other people which have a
catharsis effect that helps reduce our grief towards the loss (Massey, Chaboyer, & Anderson,
2017). MDT provides an opportunity for everyone to feel their self worth even after the loss
(Massey, Chaboyer, & Anderson, 2017). The sense of personal worth is relevant to Nancy’s
parent. They should have self belief that even without seeing their daughter they can still make it
to support their daughter. Self worth is also relevant to Thomas who will hear situations of other
widowers. He is likely to learn from how these widowers coped with their situations. To him,
therefore, the situation will look normal and he is likely to go over his loss. Mutual help groups
also give aid to the grieved through provision of a role model. Thomas can derive a widower role
model and if he decides to live his life like his role model, it will help him recover from the loss
of his wife Nancy. As analyzed post bereavement mutual disciplinary teams have since acted as
an alternative or adjuncts to professional care-giving systems. They have an added advantage.
Apart from just giving counseling advice to problems arising from the bereavement, they also

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give full advice on the re-organization of the bereaved upon their status. These statuses include;
being single again, being a widower, and being a total or a partial orphan.
Cultural beliefs and cultural practice at times interfere with treatment plans given to
patients. However, it is the role of the nurse to identify such problems and define communication
strategies and techniques that will reduce such situations to almost none (Powell, & Powell,
2015). In places of confusion, meetings should be made through the communication strategy so
that the issue is solved as soon as possible. Different cultures have different practices that might
be considered unethical but the following communication techniques should help a nurse
overcome such situations. However, in the case of Nancy, there isn’t any mention of any
unethical or irrelevant beliefs or practices.
The first communication technique to help overcome cultural beliefs and practice is
communication awareness (Scerri, Innes, & Scerri, 2015). Awareness technique is pursuit by the
nurse to become culturally competent to the patient they are caring for. Care takers are expected
to know their own cultures so that they learn to appreciate the cultures of the patient that they are
taking care of. With awareness as a technique they are likely to allude to the patient about their
culture and thereof convince the patient to take the treatment plan (Rouleau, Gagnon, & Côté,
2015). Awareness communication also helps in controlling the personal bias likely to be
experienced from both the patient and their family. Awareness will ensure oppression, racism,
discrimination and stereotyping which might affect the treatment plan on the part of the patient is
minimized as much as possible (Ting-Toomey, & Dorjee, 2018). All these affect the nurses as
personally as possible. In the case of Nancy, if the nurse notices that the Buddhist parents insist
on particular rituals that will heal her, awareness communication will make Nancy understand

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how the treatment plan is as important as the family ritual. Awareness should be done cautiously
not to pre-judge or undermine the cultural beliefs or the ritual.
A second communication technique that helps control cultural belief is acceptance
(Tobiano, Bucknall, Marshall, Guinane, & Chaboyer, 2016). Acceptance is the communication
strategy where the nurse communicates to the patient that to heal she needs self love and self
acceptance more than anything else. The acceptance technique of communication should be done
cautiously not to become an incitement against the treatment plan. In the patient’s myriad of
problems, the nurse should keep communicating to them how they are accepted and awesome.
With self acceptance the patient will believe more in themselves than believing in rituals and
powers that only exist partially (Tobiano, Bucknall, Marshall, Guinane, & Chaboyer, 2015).
Nurses in this case become agents of good messages which seek to change the perspective of the
patient. An example is Nancy, who should be communicated to through acceptance technique.
She should stop believing that becoming westernized is the cause of her ordeal. The change of
name is a show that she has lost self confidence which should be restored by her nurse. It can be
restored through, self acceptance technique of communication.
The last communication technique that saves from the ordeal of culture is asking
questions. It is not possible to know of cultural sensitive individuals without asking the patient
and the family. The nurse should ask of any suspicions about the family belief in any sensitive
culture that might affect the treatment plan. When they both have a treatment plan, it is possible
to use or develop an alternative treatment plan. Most nurses appear to be in doubt; the best way
is to communicate through asking question until a clarification is made. Caution should be taken
by nurses using such a technique. Some nurses begin treatment plans in the initial stages of
assessment. Such situations might end up so bad, when during the course of treatment the patient

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refuses to support the treatment plan. It is only safe to initiate a treatment plan once the nurse has
determined through asking, that the patient and the family do not have any unique need in
relation to their culture. From the explanations provided it is clear that to overcome cultural and
belief barriers in the course of administering a care and treatment plan to a patient
communication techniques are required on the part of the nurse. Some of the mentioned
techniques include: asking, acceptance and awareness.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this paper has analyzed the ways in which communication, communication
techniques and strategies are important to the health care profession. To nurses, communication
to the patient and vice versa as a process is very important (Watts et al., 2017). With the help of
the case study involving Nancy, it has been easier to analyze the different communication
strategies. At the initial stages, communication strategies that create a bond between family,
patient and nurse have been discussed. Factors that should exist in the mind of the nurse have
also been exploited. In the latter topics communication techniques that help the bereaved have
been exploited. These techniques relate directly to the case of Nancy who is like to succumb to
cancer. To end the crucial communication in healthcare importance, three techniques have been
exploited as barrier breakers of culture and belief treatment walls.

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