Nursing Essay: The Importance of Communication in Patient Care

This essay delves into the critical role of communication in nursing practices, emphasizing its impact on patient health and well-being. It begins by defining nursing and the significance of effective communication skills, including therapeutic techniques, in establishing healthy nurse-patient relationships. The essay highlights the importance of communication in assessing health, illness, and health promotion. It further explores various communication methods like verbal, non-verbal, and written forms, and their influence on patient care, with an emphasis on therapeutic communication. The discussion underscores how effective communication contributes to positive health outcomes, patient satisfaction, and the prevention of errors within healthcare settings. The essay also examines the therapeutic alliance, and how it fosters trust, respect, and empathy, ultimately leading to improved patient care and recovery. The conclusion reinforces the necessity of nurses and health professionals to communicate effectively to meet patient needs and ensure the best possible treatment and recovery.

Running Head: NURSING
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Nursing
3/2/2019

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Introduction
The essay brings about the discussion on the nursing concepts and practices, which
includes the assessment of the health, illness, and health promotion for the individuals in the
society. To discuss about the nursing concepts and the role it plays within society, it is first
essential to understand the concepts and practices related to nursing or healthcare. Nursing
refers to the profession within the healthcare sector that undertakes the responsibility of
providing care to the individuals to help them maintain and recover the health and quality of
life. Therefore, the essay will describe the importance of effective or therapeutic
communication, essential to attain skills to ensure effective care and treatment to the patients.
In addition, the essay will enlist the impact of communication on the health of the patient
(MacLean et al., 2017). The thesis statement for this essay is “Nurses or health professionals
can attain positive health outcomes for the patients through effective communication within
healthcare” . Thus, the report will mention the concept of therapeutic communication and the
leading positive influence on the health of the individuals.
Communication in Nursing practices
Leading on to the discussion over the topic, the essay will describe meaning and
importance of communication in the nursing practices. The aspect of communication in
healthcare is considered important tool for the health professionals and nurses to ensure
health services and improving the patient satisfaction. Moreover, communication in the
healthcare has a personal effect on the patients and other clients, depending on the manner the
communication process carried amongst them. In fact, to state about the process of
communication, it is not only a skill, and neither it in uni-directional rather it is determined as
the interaction between the sender and receiver of the information or important messages
during the process i.e. from both nurse/health professional and patient (Foronda,
MacWilliams & McArthur, 2016).
A nurse in a healthcare setting requires effective skills of communication to develop a healthy
relationship which include skills, flexibility, enhance listening ability, do not make
assumptions, understanding cultural differences, strengthen writing skills, and becoming
assertive or positive towards bringing change to the health condition of the patient.

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According to some researchers, it has been analysed that the overall content of the
work and action of the nurses in the society and health system is largely the outcome of the
effectiveness of communication between nurses and external environment. This is further
associated to the process of therapeutic communication through which nurses consciously
influences the patients and helps them understand treatment through verbal and non-verbal
communication (Kurtz, Draper & Silverman, 2016).
Communication is one of the basic nursing competencies as the profession of nursing
is complex therefore; nurses need to adopt effective communication skills and attributes to
attain positive health outcomes. Besides, the process of communication is imperative for
attaining optimal patient care and preventing errors, within healthcare settings in
consideration to the treatment. Hence, from the above discussion it is clear that effective
communication is the core concept or aspect as the nursing roles, for the attainment of
successful outcome of individualized care of the patient (Gluyas, 2015).
Patient care through effective communication
Effective communication is a core skill that nurses need to provide care to the patient
and the quality of communication in the interactions amongst the patient and nurses leads to
an influence on the health of patient. Therefore, for a nurse, the ability to communicate is an
important skill and vital to perform best out of their job roles. Development of
communication skills by nurses in healthcare supported through practising interacting with
people or patient with varying cultural, educational, and social backgrounds, to attain the
level of efficiency (Bramhall, 2014).
Rosenberg and Gallo-Silver (2011) were of the view that a nurse working in a
healthcare, at any level such as primary, secondary or tertiary needs to apply competencies in
the area of pedagogy. Nowadays, hospitals or healthcare focused on the enhanced care of
their patients; however, it is more important to establish a direct contact between the nurse
and patients. It is necessary because of the fact it helps in attaining personal contact and
feedback from their service delivery or treatment methods used within health setting.
A study revealed that absence of communication or poor communication led to
negative health outcomes. This consists of the negative results such as discontinuity of care,
compromising patient health and safety, patient dissatisfaction and inefficient use of valuable
resources. Therefore, analysing the above section communication has been the driving force

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of success of the nursing practices. In this context, the written communication form has
emphasized, as well as their impact of the inefficiency of communication and the
recommendations to improve the written communication within healthcare. The most useful
and common form of written communication, used in the healthcare are the referral and
discharge letters. For an instance, a nurse with effective skills of communication will be able
to obtain request for specific assessment or treatment of the patient. This will be done if the
nurse communicates the rationale and aspects of the use of specific method of treatment for
the patient (Kourkouta & Papathanasiou, 2014).
Impact of different types of communications on patient care
The aspects of effective or therapeutic communication determine foundation for the
success of patient treatment and care plan designed by health professionals. Now, the purpose
of the descriptive essay is to explain the various forms of communication used with the
patients and their impacts on the patient care, along with significance of process. The
communication methods used in the healthcare includes listening & attending (includes
patient/family complaints), non-verbal, verbal, questioning, and written. Non-verbal
communication is also termed as ‘body-language’, which plays a vital role in determining the
impact or changes in the health state of the patient (Riley, 2015).
For an instance, the use of non-verbal communication will be most beneficial at times
when the patient is scared or feeling pain or discomfort, or facing difficulty-speaking things.
Thus, important aspects of body language, or examining the posture, making facial
expressions and eye contact to the patient will help in analysing their needs and experiences
or issues in consideration to the treatment provided to them. Similarly, written
communication is important in the healthcare for both, the patient and the health
professionals, staff and nurses. It will help to maintain the record of care and treatment, or
care plan designed and provided to the patient for any further use. Additionally, it makes
sure about the availability of the staff in the hospital, irrespective of the case, patient care
ensured 24/7 as per the requirement of the patient. In this way, quality in healthcare services
are provided to the patients by practising effective forms of communication, inclusive of the
therapeutic communication which enhances the levels of health of the patients (Rosenburg &
Galo-Silver, 2011).

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Therapeutic Communication in Healthcare
The research mentioned that there is a strong and inherent relationship between the
healthcare quality and the nurse-patient relationship within healthcare. At the same time, lack
of communication amongst them will negatively influence the health services provided to the
patients. Consequently, the interaction or process of communication between the two, i.e.
patient and nurse lasts to the treatment as therapeutic relationship between them. After
analysing above listed types of communication, the aspect of therapeutic communication has
found the most suitable in healthcare (Abdolrahimi et al., 2017).
Effective communication is the basic ingredient of the nurse-patient relationship, and
one of the important aspects is therapeutic communication, which engages nurses to plan
patient care. On this account, communication is the core foundation of the nursing practices,
will be explored through this descriptive essay. Therapeutic alliance or relationship can be
defined as the face-to-face interaction that focuses on the improvement of the physical and
emotional wellbeing of an individual. Nurses or professionals provide technical support and
information to the patients regarding their treatment using therapeutic communication
(Vermeir et al., 2015).
The examples of therapeutic communication includes some form of non-verbal
communication, which includes eye contact, silence in active listening of the patient. The
attributes of the therapeutic alliance includes listening to the patient non-verbally, nodding,
and the phrases involving verbal communication. Thus, the major objective or goal of
therapeutic communication in nursing involves attainment of patient’s health and wellbeing
in all the respect through the components of trust, respect, genuine interest, and empathy
(Mistiaen et al., 2016).
From the aforementioned discussion, the meaning, relevance of the therapeutic
communication understood in context to the nursing practices. Now, the discussion will
determine the significance of therapeutic communication to the health professionals. A
successful therapeutic relationship between the nurses and patients depends on the factors of
communication, trust, and understanding of the issues and other related aspects of treatment.
However, low levels of effective communication or absence of therapeutic
communication may lead to problems such as misdiagnosis, anxiety, misunderstanding,
possibility of maltreatment, exposure to further complications leading to the increases length

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of the hospital stay that creates dissatisfaction. Thus practising effective therapeutic
communication process within healthcare is the key to patient recovery and wellbeing (Oh et
al., 2015).
Conclusion
To conclude the above discussion it can be stated that the communication in the health
care contributes vital to the patient safety, and health. The aspect of effective communication
is essential for the nurse, and other health professionals to be acquired to attain positive
results. Thus, concept of therapeutic communication is holistic and patient-centred, and
involves the totality of the actual condition of the patient. Therefore, the role of therapeutic
communication has identified as crucial component that develops a positive clinician-patient
experience. Hence, to summarise it states that nurses/health professionals must act, and
respond effectively to the needs of the patients and ensure them best treatment recovery of
their health condition.

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References
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Bramhall, E (2014) Effective communication skills in nursing practice. Nursing Standard 29,
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Foronda, C., MacWilliams, B. & McArthur, E. (2016). Inter-professional communication in
healthcare: an integrative review. Nurse education in practice, 19, 36-40.
Gluyas, H. (2015). Effective communication and teamwork promotes patient safety. Nursing
Standard (2014), 29(49), 50.
Kourkouta, L. & Papathanasiou, I. V. (2014). Communication in nursing practice. Materia
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Kurtz, S., Draper, J. & Silverman, J. (2016). Skills for communicating with patients. United
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the clinical setting. Teaching and Learning in Nursing 6, 2-8.

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Vermeir, P., Vandijck, D., Degroote, S., Peleman, R., Verhaeghe, R., Mortier, E. &
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