Health and Social Care Communication: Role-Play Analysis Report

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UNDERSTANDING COMMUNICATION PROCESSES AND PRACTICES
INDIVIDUAL EVALUATION REPORT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................2
RANGE OF COMMUNICATION METHODS THAT CAN BE APPLIED TO THE ROLE-PLAY.............3
SIGNIFICANCE OF EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION.....................................................................4
COMMUNICATION SKILLS USED WITH SERVICE USERS, SKILLS AND PEERS.............................5
EVALUATION AND A CRITICAL REFLECTION ON THE ROLE PLAY AND FEEDBACK RECEIVED....7
CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................................... 10
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................... 11
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INTRODUCTION
The necessity for effective communication is ubiquitous to every industry and sector.
Especially in the health and social care sector, proper communication is utmost important to
ensure effective care and service delivery. Both service providers and users need to provide
clear information to each other to attain the desired results (King and Hoppe, 2013). Thus, it
is important in the health care sector to have appropriate skills, knowledge and good
communication abilities to deliver quality services to the users.
This report provides an overview of the individual skills and knowledge on the importance of
communication in the public health and social care by analysing the personal and peers role
and experience during the role-play presented in a classroom. The role-play is performed in
a group of three people where we have presented a script or scenario among the patient,
carer and General Practitioner. I, Lucia played the role of patient, Angela played the role of
carer and Kumaran has acted as General Practitioner. The script was about the health care
service scenario that presents the conversation among the patient who suffers from
rheumatoid arthritis, UTI and hypertension and lives alone in her home, her carer who is
responsible for providing proper health care to her and the GP who is responsible for
diagnosing the patient. The personal and peers performance during the role-play will be
evaluated to identify the personal strengths and weaknesses in establishing proper
communication and delivering good health and social care services.
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RANGE OF COMMUNICATION METHODS THAT CAN BE APPLIED TO
THE ROLE-PLAY
In health and social care setting, communication is large concerns with making contact with
others and being understood. A good communication skill is very important to develop
working relationships, provide emotional support; assessing individual’s needs and provide
clear information to the involved people. In order to deliver quality work, it is important to
use and understand different types of communication during service delivery (Reeves, et al.,
2013). The different types of communication are applied in the health and social care and so
does should be applied to the role-play.
VERBAL COMMUNICATION:
Verbal communication is when words and sounds are used to share information. It is when
one person speaks and another listen and reply. The verbal communication between the
patient, carer and GP is presented in the role-play (Brindley and Reynolds, 2011). Verbal
communications may be written or oral.
 Written: it involves the use of pen documents, traditional paper, text chats, reports,
SMS or anything that is used to exchange written information like language. In the
role-play, written communication is when the GP gained knowledge about the
patient’s condition through medications.
 Oral: An effective oral verbal communication involves proper voice tone, volume and
pitch so that the listener could understand the exact meaning. It could be done face-
to-face, phone call, voice chat or any other medium. In the role-play, oral
communication is used by the carer to inform GP about the health conditions of the
Patient (Brindley and Reynolds, 2011).
NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION:
The non-verbal communication is transmitting information without using words, either oral
or written or through non-linguistic way such as visual, tactile, auditory, and Kinesthetic
(physical) channels (Hall, 2011). It involves communication through body language; facial
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expression, gestures, touch or contact, and eye contact. Some of the non-verbal
communication methods are;
 Body language: body positioning, posture, gesture, facial expressions and eye
contact etc, are some kind of body language that is generally used as the natural
response among the people. In a role play, the patient can use body language to
show the severity of stomach pain.
 Braille: this form of communication is used for communicating with visually impaired
people. It involves reading and writing by touching raised dots (Hall, 2011).
 Sign language: sign language is used for communicating with a person who is hard
of hearing.
VISUAL COMMUNICATION:
The information exchanges through the help of visual aids like graphic designs, signs, colour,
drawing and other electronic resources are a form of visual communication. For e.g. fire exit
signs, and place names. Social media is increasingly using in health care for establishing
effective communication with the users and peers (Moorhead, et al., 2013).
From the above-identified communication methods, the methods of oral, verbal and non-
verbal communication like body language are very essential for working in the presented
health and social care in the role play.
SIGNIFICANCE OF EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION
Effective communication in the health care setting enables both care workers and service
users to work effectively and form a good relationship together. Communication can be
effectively done when people feel relaxed, experience genuineness and warmth in the
relationship and are able to empathise with each other. Effective communication is the key
skill that all professionals and workers should possess to effectively work with the carers,
patients, families, children (Brock, et al., 2013).
To deliver quality services in the health and social care setting, it is important to build trust
and maintain relationships. Communication plays an essential role in building trust and
relationship by involving active listening, questioning, responding and understanding. For
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instance, a more personal relationship is expected between the carer and the service user,
as the carers are there with the users daily and help them in performing their personal
tasks. The relationship between the carer and the service user is at a more personal level
but different from other relations (Brock, et al., 2013). Therefore, it is very important to
establish effective communication using different methods of communication such as non-
verbal, verbal and visual.
COMMUNICATION SKILLS USED WITH SERVICE USERS, SKILLS AND
PEERS
In order to establish effective communication, a care provider should develop and use the
range of skills, abilities and communication techniques to provide quality services to the
users (Koprowska, 2014). The key communication skills required for establishing effective
communication with the service users and peers are:
Figure 1: Communication Skills
[Source: Koprowska, 2014]
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 Active Listening: in order to establish effective communication, it is important to pay
close attention to what the other person is trying to say as well as to notice the non-
verbal messages communicated by the other person (Arnold and Boggs, 2019). The
active listeners’ use words like yes, I see, Go on rather than nodding head or making
‘Mm’ sounds.
 Clarifying Messages: the important aspect of conversations must be clarified and
repeated to create a better understanding among involved people.
 Tone, Pace and Content of Speech: the choice of words, and the way a person
speaks, the pace, tone and volume of the speaker’s voice influences the
effectiveness of the communication. It is important to speak clearly and avoiding the
use of acronyms, slang and jargons to prevent developing misunderstandings
(Koprowska, 2014). A relaxed, heartening and friendly voice-tone must be used to
convey warmth, sincerity and respect to the listener.
 Appropriate Proximity: an awareness of the amount of the required personal space
i.e. proximity is an important feature of effective communication. Thus, the
proximity must be adjusted in response to the person’s body language to avoid
discomfort to the other person.
 Facial Expression and Eye Contact: the human face is an important source of non-
verbal communication. An effective communicator must be able to read and
interpret the facial expressions of others as well as using facial expressions to convey
their emotions (Arnold and Boggs, 2019). Eye contact can be effectively used to
establish trust and provide reassurance.
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EVALUATION AND A CRITICAL REFLECTION ON THE ROLE PLAY AND
FEEDBACK RECEIVED
The role-play activity has supported in identifying the personal skills, strengths and
weaknesses as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the peers. The Gibbs reflective
model can be effectively applied to analyse my individual and team performance during the
role play (Davies, 2012). The evaluation and reflection on role play is presented below;
Figure 2: Gibbs Reflective Cycle
[Source: Mindtools.com, 2019]
DESCRIPTION:
the roleplay is about the scenario of delivery health and social care services to the elderly
patient, who is an 84-year-old woman suffering from the disease called rheumatoid arthritis,
UTI and hypertension. It involves a carer or a general practitioner. I have played the role of
the service user, Angela played the role of carer and Kumaran played the role of a general
practitioner. During our roleplay, we have got to know about the real situations that may
arise during the process of service delivery as well as the different methods and ways of
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communication that can be used to make improve our performance during delivering health
and social care services to the users.
FEELINGS:
when the teacher provided us with the script for role-playing and allotted our roles, I was
feeling nervous. I was acting as an elderly patient who is suffering from arthritis and Urinary
tract infection (UTI). Before starting our roleplay, we have practised our characters
individually and in a team. This has supported me to gain some confidence and making
planning about how would I deliver my performance. I have decided to behave like an
elderly woman with low energy. My team member Angela is seemed to be confident about
her role while Kumaran was also looking a bit nervous and low in confidence.
ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION:
The complete role-play has been performed successfully. I have acted properly as a role of
the patient but I think, in order to look like an elderly woman, I was speaking too much slow
and silent that has negatively affected my performance. The other students were unable to
clearly listen to my words. In addition to this, nervousness is clearly presented on my face
that has a distracting audience and affecting the effectiveness of communication. While
analysing Angela’s work, I must say she was confident throughout the role-play and has
effectively performed the role of carer with proper gestures and verbal communication. on
the other hand, Kumaran's performance was average as he was just standing in the corner
and reading his script. He does not use gestures and another mode of communications very
well. He may have shown some sign of responsible GP by clearly explaining his role.
However, our overall performance was quite good as we were able to express the real
theme of the role-play.
CONCLUSION:
After analysing personal performance and the performance of my team members, it can be
concluded that I may have performed better by using proper ways of communication. I
should have spoken clearer and louder so that the audience could effectively listen to us.
Despite acting elderly, I should have a focus on acting real and use louder voice to fake
stomach pain so that my colleagues could effectively connect with my role. While Angela
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has performed up to the mark, kumara should have also improved his performance by
getting more involved in the role-play and improving his communication and explanation
skills.
ACTION:
The role-play has provided an overview of my skills and abilities that would support me in
delivering effective health and social care services. In order to deliver the effective and
quality services in the future, I must focus on developing my knowledge on the ways of
communication and using different ways such as verbal, gestures, proper voice and pitch
and facial expressions to establish a good relationship with the service users and peers
through effective communication.
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CONCLUSION
The report has presented an individual reflection of their own performances and the
performance of peers from the role-play presentation presented in the classroom. The
importance of effective communication in the health and social context can be easily
understood through this report. The different modes of communications and their
importance in establishing a good relationship with the users and peers are determined in
the above report. By analysing the personal and peers performance during the role play, it
can be easily concluded that the proper understanding and use of the human gestures, body
language and facial expressions are very important in the health and social care. Along with
this, it is also important to use proper tone, pace and volume to effectively communicate
with the person by considering the different essential communication skills like proximity,
eye contact, active listening. The overall report has enabled me to deliver effective care
services to the patient by utilising the proper method of communication.
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REFERENCES
 Arnold, E.C. and Boggs, K.U., 2019. Interpersonal Relationships E-Book: Professional
Communication Skills for Nurses. Saunders.
 Brindley, P.G. and Reynolds, S.F., 2011. Improving verbal communication in critical
care medicine. Journal of critical care, 26(2), pp.155-159.
 Brock, D., Abu-Rish, E., Chiu, C.R., Hammer, D., Wilson, S., Vorvick, L., Blondon, K.,
Schaad, D., Liner, D. and Zierler, B., 2013. Interprofessional education in team
communication: working together to improve patient safety. BMJ Qual Saf, 22(5),
pp.414-423.
 Davies, S., 2012. Embracing reflective practice. Education for Primary Care, 23(1),
pp.9-12.
 Hall, D., 2011. Debate: Innovative teaching to enhance critical thinking and
communication skills in healthcare professionals. Internet Journal of Allied Health
Sciences and Practice, 9(3), p.7.
 King, A. and Hoppe, R.B., 2013. "Best practice" for patient-centred communication: a
narrative review. Journal of graduate medical education, 5(3), pp.385-393.
 Koprowska, J., 2014. Communication and interpersonal skills in social work. Learning
Matters.
 Mindtools.com, 2019. Gibbs' Reflective Cycle. online available at
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/reflective-cycle.htm. last accessed on 6th
May 2019.
 Moorhead, S.A., Hazlett, D.E., Harrison, L., Carroll, J.K., Irwin, A. and Hoving, C., 2013.
A new dimension of health care: systematic review of the uses, benefits, and
limitations of social media for health communication. Journal of medical Internet
research, 15(4), p.e85.
 Reeves, S., Perrier, L., Goldman, J., Freeth, D. and Zwarenstein, M., 2013.
Interprofessional education: effects on professional practice and healthcare
outcomes. Cochrane Database of systematic reviews, (3).
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