The Crucial Role of Effective Communication in Nursing Practice

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PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION IN
NURSING

Professional communication is a very crucial element in nursing in all the aspects such as
treatment, therapy, prevention, education, rehabilitation, and health promotion. The effective
nurse patient communication is achieved through interpersonal environment, through
dialogue and with the specific skills of non verbal and verbal communication. Therapeutic
nurse patient relationship and patients safety includes the verbal communication of public
health workers on and nurses on the one hand and the patients and their relatives on the other
hand. This is a two way process in which the patient conveys their concern and fears to their
nurses and help them to make a correct nursing diagnosis. The nurses take the information
given by the patients and then transmit other information to patients with delicacy and
discretion as to nature of the disease and advice the treatment steps and rehabilitation
programmes for the health promotion. Effective professional communication in nursing need
an understanding of patient and the feelings they express. This requires sincere intention of
nurse to understand what concerns the patient and also need skills. Therefore, whole process
is the reflection of the feeling of participants, the way of their thinking, their capabilities and
their knowledge.
In effective nurse patient relationship three things kept at utmost importance which is person
centred care, therapeutic care and the patient safety. The person centred care occurs when the
person centeredness and personhood are applied to the actual care that is too delivered to the
people across their life and in range of settings. It involves respect and trust and is useful in
every setting and in every speciality. When a person centred approach is applied in
communication the person and his or her family members must be included in all aspects of
the process. Nurses and midwives not able to identify a patient health problems without their
cooperation therefore it is necessary to seek feedback from the patient and encourage them to
be the part of discussion making process related to their health problem. The person centred
relationship and the social relationship has many common components like care, trust,
concern and growth but they are also very different like person centred relationship occurs for
a specific reason with the specific person, it is characterised by unequal sharing of
information, in this patient share problems about health and nurses and midwives shares
information in terms of professional role, it is built on the basis of patient need, not on the
basis of health care workers which are different from social relationships. It is very necessary
for nurses and midwives to remember that professional communication has some boundaries
and crossing those boundaries may result in disciplinary action. It is noticed that a patient is

more likely to value and trust nurses and midwives who appear confident and competent and
focussed on person centred. The patient safe communication is a means by which health care
professionals collect and share the information, clarify and verify accurate interpretations of
information, and establish the process for working collaboratively with both the patient and
other health professionals to achieve common goals of safe and high quality patient. (schuster
and nykolyn, 2010). For health professionals, unsafe communication is considered to be a
breach of professional standard and leading cause of litigations. The entire mentioned thing
completely reflects that effective nurse patient communication is very crucial to promote the
therapeutic nurse patient relationships and the patient safety. (CHEC) To explain the
importance of effective nurse patient communication the example of a 19 year old man
named Chester Abioye is taken. He has come to the registered nurse for heath assessment.
As he arrived the nurse started the conversation by asking his name, his address and about the
complaint related to his health. Chester told that he has suffered from depression in past and
he wants to improve his health by exercise, diet and by making positive changes in his life.
The nurse firstly checked and recorded his height that is 187 cm, his weight that is 73kg, his
blood pressure that is 118/70, HR 86, RR22, temperature 37.0. (trede,ellis,E.jones,S.
(2012))per day, he drink 6 to 10 standard drink once in month, mostly stays at home, rarely
exercises, like chatting and talking with his girlfriend and friends, mostly eats bread, meat
and rice, he told that he is not interested in any religion and don’t like sunglasses or wearing
hat when he goes outside. After listening to him nurse said to him that not following any
religion is not a bad thing he is correct in this thing but she told him the side effects of
smoking and drinking standard drink which are harmful in many ways. She also told that
having a relationship is a great thing but as he was only 19 she told that he has to concentrate
on his studies, he has to do morning and evening walk, he has to interact with new people, he
has to eat healthy food like sprouts and green vegetables, juices and soups which are good for
health and he has to do simple exercises daily. In this way the interaction of patient and nurse
led to great diagnosis and understand ability in both of them. (Western sydney university
health assement 3,scenario 3)
Effective communication leads to better outcomes for the patients, also reduces health service
expenditure. It is an integral part of quality health care. Patient safe communication may be
challenging and complex but it is very necessary in professional communication. This essay
will help to provide knowledge, practical strategies which help to improve communication
skills and patient safety by effective nurse patient communication.

REFERENCES:
( new south wales nursing and midwifery office(2009))
(national patient safety foundation(2008))
(trede,ellis,E.jones,S.(2012))
(world health organisation WHO(2011))
(Western sydney university health assement 3,scenario 3)
(schuster and nykolyn, 2010) (CHEC).