Why effective nurse patient communication is critical to promoting therapeutic nurse patient relationships and patient safety?
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Under a Creative Commons license Open access AbstractBackgroundPatients’ full participation or nonparticipation in the care process, compliance with medical advice, and taking personal control of their health, to some extent, are influenced by the quality of nurse-patient interaction and communication. The impact of poor communication among nurses can be detrimental to the quality of care, nursing practices, and safety, which suggests that communication competence is a required skill in the nursing profession. The aim of this review was to explore communication strategies in nurse-patient interaction and how that affects patient participation in the care process in sub-Saharan Africa and to identify the major findings and gaps in the literature. MethodsTo undertake this scoping review, key-words such as nurse-patient, provider-patient, nurse-client, nurse-healthcare consumer, interact*, communication, relationship, Africa, and Africa south of the Sahara were used and combined with the Boolean operators OR/AND. Thirty-two studies were retained for this current review, which included 29 articles, two theses, and one dissertation. ResultsThe study found that communication in nurse-patient interaction has been researched in a few countries in sub-Sahara Africa in HIV/AIDS, maternal and reproductive care, intensive and palliative care, operative/postoperative care, and primary healthcare settings. The results suggested that nurse-patient communication studies need to extend to other healthcare contexts. Furthermore, in many of the healthcare areas studied, nurse-patient communication has been poor, with care providers dominating the process. Most nurses neglect patient needs and concerns as well as abuse and humiliate them, especially in maternal/antenatal and primary healthcare settings in public healthcare facilities. Excessive workload, shortages of nursing staff, poor communication skills, and lack of involvement of nursing managers in the care process negatively impacts on nurses’ ability to interact effectively with their clients. ConclusionWe thus argue for the inclusion of communication skills in nursing training programs as well as the engagement of nursing managers and healthcare administrators in strengthening communication within the nurse-patient dyad. KeywordsCaregiver engagement Health communication Nurse-patient interaction Scoping review Sub-Saharan Africa Cited by (0)Abukari Kwame is currently a PhD candidate in Interdisciplinary Studies at the College of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, University of Saskatchewan with interest in language use in nurse-patient interaction and patient rights. Kwame holds two M.Phil. degrees, one in Indigenous Studies and the other in English Linguistics. His research interest areas include language use in social interaction, First/Second language acquisition, traditional knowledge, indigenous research methodology, and qualitative research methods. Pammla M. Petrucka is a professor in Nursing at the College of Nursing, University of Saskatchewan. Pammla has an international research experience with many of her graduate students coming from Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. Pammla, has published extensively in the field of nursing. Her research interests are vast, including child and maternal health, Indigenous peoples’ health, global health, and vulnerable populations, with extensive experiences in qualitative research, and indigenous research methodologies. Pammla is also a co-editor of the BMC Nursing journal and a reviewer to many academic journals. © 2020 Published by Elsevier Ltd. The therapeutic nurse-patient relationship is at the core of nursing practice. When established properly, the relationship contributes to a patient’s health and well-being. For this reason, nurses are accountable for establishing and maintaining therapeutic relationships with their patients, including maintaining appropriate professional boundaries. It is also important to know that the relationship lasts as long as the patient needs nursing care. This means that no matter how short or long the time span, a therapeutic nurse-patient relationship is formed. To make sure the patient’s needs are prioritized, nurses must understand that the following five components are always present in a therapeutic nurse-patient relationship: Trust: Trust is critical to the therapeutic relationship. It may be fragile at first, and you need continual effort to maintain it. Respect: To respect is to recognize that every individual has inherent dignity, worth and uniqueness, regardless of socio-economic status, personal attributes and the nature of their health problem. Professional Intimacy: When nurses provide intimate care activities to their patients, such as bathing, it creates professional closeness. Professional intimacy can also involve being privy to psychological, spiritual and social elements that are identified in patients’ plans of care. Empathy: A nurse shows empathy by understanding, validating and confirming what the health care experience means to the patient. Nurses must ensure that they maintain appropriate emotional distance from the patient to ensure objectivity and an appropriate professional response. Power: The nurse-patient relationship is one of unequal power. The nurse has more authority and influence in the health care system, access to confidential information and the ability to advocate for the patient. If a nurse misuses this power, it is considered abuse. Nurses’ responsibility to establish and maintain the therapeutic nurse-patient relationship also includes maintaining proper boundaries. This means that nurses must not engage in any behaviour or activity that could be perceived as violating a boundary. Violating a boundary means a nurse is misusing their power and trust in the relationship to meet personal needs or is behaving in an unprofessional manner with the patient. Page 11 of the Therapeutic Nurse-Client Relationshippractice standard has a decision tree which helps to determine whether an activity or behaviour is appropriate within the context of the nurse-patient relationship and meets a therapeutic purpose. For more information about nurses’ accountabilities to their patients, read the Code of Conduct. It is also important to be aware of the differences between professional and social relationships. Nurses must make sure they set appropriate boundaries that prevent a professional relationship from becoming a social one. For more information, read the Ask Practice FAQ: Professional versus social relationships. Why is communication so important to the nurseCommunication assists in the performance of accurate, consistent and easy nursing work, ensuring both the satisfaction of the patient and the protection of the health professional.
Why is nurse communication important for patient safety and quality care?Effective communication among staff encourages effective teamwork and promotes continuity and clarity within the patient care team. At its best, good communication encourages collaboration, fosters teamwork, and helps prevent errors.
What is one of the main purposes of communication in the therapeutic nurseTherapeutic communication skills, which can be developed through education and practice, are the most important part of nursing. This process improves patient satisfaction through listening and conveying information.
Why is communication important in a therapeutic relationship?Through communication, a patient can: be reassured; be put at ease; be taken seriously; understand their illness more fully; voice their fears and concerns; feel empowered; be motivated to follow a medication regimen; express a desire to have treatment (or not); be given time and treated with respect.
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