Effective Communication in Health Care - MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about theEffective Communication in Health Care. Answer: In a healthcare setting the communication between a nurse with various people is an important aspect of the care giving role. Thoughts, information and feelings are exchanged between the nurse and patient as part of the communication between them. It is important for the nurse to understand the patient and their expression of experiences. Many times patient may not be able to express verbally. At such times the non-verbal cues are understood better by a nurse who is empathetic and receptive to patient's body language and non-verbal cues(Kourkouta Papathanasiou, 2014). During the interaction with other healthcare professionals, patients and their families and colleagues it is important that a nurse has very good communication skills. The communication between the nurse and patient involves verbal and non-verbal communication. It is important to remain open and possess an attitude that helps in understanding the patient's needs while listening to the patient and reassuring the patient with the voice, tone and content of the communication. The practice of self awareness during communication with patients is an important factor in improving the quality of the message delivered. According to the Oxford dictionary, self awareness is defined as "Conscious knowledge of one's own character, feelings, motives, and desires." (Oxford Dictionary) Self awareness helps a nurse to be aware of how she functions in a given situation. There are several difficult and urgent tasks that a nurse performs during the course of a working day and it is important to remain aware of everything that is said and done with patients, colleagues and other healthcare professionals. Learning about one self as a being and the salient things that influence us and impact us in myriad different ways is being self-aware. Introspection and a constant reflection about how our words and attitudes affect those whom we interact with are important. If we are aware about how we affect others we can understand people in a better manner. The continuous process of how we understand ourselves and the knowledge of our own identity is important because our beliefs, motivations, characteristics, feelings and thinking change over time. It is important to understand how these changes affect those around us. An objective examinations of our beliefs and strengths, attitu des and limitations is being aware of oneself(Rashid, 2015). It helps us to understand ourselves in context with others and is therefore a method of constant self evaluation that can help us remain in sync with those around us and is a satisfying process. Communication with self -awareness is important in dealing with tents who may come from diverse cultural backgrounds and may have values and belief systems different from those of the nurse. In such situations communicating skilfully without allowing room for conflict should be practised. It is possible to use tools and enhance one's level of self-awareness. Reflection and mindfulness practice have been understood to be necessary for development of self awareness. The ability to communicate effectively through increased awareness of the self helps the patient and the nurse alike. The quality of care delivered depends a great deal on whether the nurse is emotionally intelligent and has self awareness. A control over expression of an ger or frustration has benefits. Knowledge of what to say and express when evolves as a nurse remains alert through introspection, reflection and mindfulness and carefully studies the impact of communication on the patient. Caring for patients is a highly engaging task and many times the carer may be from a different cultural, religious, socioeconomic, and political background. Caring for patients who have higher or lower privilege, sexual orientation, gender, age and race can be a challenge. For a young nurse, these differences can be emotionally difficult to handle. Delivering culturally sensitive care is central to provision of patient-centred care (Kamrul, et al., 2014). But a person with self-awareness will be able to reflect on the inner turmoil and not allow it to affect the quality of care delivered to the patient. Even if a person's personal and professional values and beliefs are in conflict with each other, the ability to remain mindful of the patient's needs and remain non-judgemental are central to a nurse's professional discharge of duty(Eckroth-Bucher, 2010). Improving self awareness is possible with practice. Luft and Ingham proposed a tool that describes self-awareness and raises the level of understanding between people who are a part of a group. It is called the Johari Window Model and has four quadrants or window panes. Each pane stands either for knowledge that we have about us or what others know about us. The Arena also called the open area signifies what we and others, both know about us. The fact that this knowledge is shared helps in communicating effectively. Relationships are better if the most of our life is located in this pane or quadrant. The areas that we keep hidden from the people around us fall in the quadrant that is titled the 'avoided area' or the 'facade'. The facade could contain very personal details or something as simple as one's love for reading books. The third area is the 'Blind spot' and signifies the areas that become evident to others but we are ourselves unaware of those. The blind spot could include ch aracteristics that are our strengths or weaknesses. Our latent capabilities that neither we nor those around us are aware of comprise the pane titled 'unknown' and include qualities that are still unexplored (Jack Smith, 2007). The main benefit from this concept can be derived by maximises the information about self in the 'open' quadrant, so that, the unknown, known to others and known only to self qualities become known to those around us. This will happen once there is improved communication between self and others (Luft Ingham, 1961). The practice of reflection and mindfulness are central to the development of self-awareness. The practice of insight and rumination also help in development of self-awareness. In case of nurses the practice of reflection, mindfulness, rumination and insight help in developing competence. The teaching of self reflection and insight program has been seen to improve the competence of nurses in performing their duties that involves complex (Pai, 2015). It is possible to improve the core competencies, and communication with patients is an important part of the nurses' work, by the process of self-reflection and it is known that this can also reduce the stress and improve work performance. Self awareness is important because the psychological state of the nurse when communicating with the patient determines how well the patient is understood and the how the information given by the patient is processed. The process of becoming self-aware is an ongoing process that may continue throughout o ne's life. The reflection upon our previous communication and actions and the learning obtained through analysing those help us become better individuals. The recognition of strengths and weaknesses offers a chance to reduce the weaknesses and is a sign of an emotionally intelligent individual. Nurses who are more aware of themselves can provide better quality of care and remain engaged in self development throughout the course of the career as a care-giver. The job of a nurse is stressful and demands various kinds of competencies. Increasing self-awareness is important because it promotes psychological well-being and reduces stress. These benefits have a bearing on the day-to-day functioning of an individual. It confers an ability to complete tasks with persistence and provides relief from performance related stress (Sutton, 2016). Communication with the patient helps in forging a therapeutic relationship. The patient can depend on the nurse and feel reassured during the process of communication, and can freely voice concerns that they may have about the illness. The patient also feels empowered on being understood and is more likely to follow the mediation regime and freely talk about whether they want the treatment to continue or not. Once the patient's confidence and respect is earned during communication they are motivated to follow medical advice. The lack of self-awareness can be a major hindrance in the communication between the nurse and the patient and delivery of care can remain sub-par. The attitudes towards others and judgements made about people prevent open communication. A nurse with self-awareness is also more likely to be emotionally intelligent and know what to say in a given situation and how much to engage in communication with a particular patient (Clancy, 2014). These qualities are beneficial for nursing management because being adept at communication helps a nurse to manage situations better and discourage the escalation of emotions and disturbances. Accepting responsibility and a higher level of accountability come naturally to nurses who are self-aware (Clancy, 2014). Self awareness helps to enhance the ability to communicate proactively and promotes self-development (Sutton, 2016). The role of self-awareness among nurses caring for mental health patients is even more important. The reasoning and judgement when dealing with patients or colleagues in the sub-conscious mind is important rather than what is taught during training. The risk of becoming biased and prejudiced towards others remains high particularly when one does not share beliefs and value systems with them. A nurse who is self-aware can foster dynamic and meaningful relationships with clients due to constant reflection and insight into questions that result from interactions with patients. When constant effort is made to remain self aware the work of a nurse acquires more meaning and results in greater satisfaction (Eckroth-Bucher, 2001). Self awareness not only helps a nurse when interacting with a client or patient but helps to improve the well-being of the nurse and also enhances the therapeutic efficiency. When a nurse juggles the various tasks of nursing and remains aware of and focussed on the patients then he/she is being mindful. The state of mindfulness makes small moments during the care a profound experience and builds a humane relationship with the patient that exceeds the task. Mindfulness means remaining aware of the present by paying attention and remaining non-judgemental, accepting and aware. The challenges of the nursing profession are manifold. The repetitive clinical emergencies, deaths, having to work in changing teams and the need to remain focussed on patients and providing support to their families when required can be difficult to handle on an everyday basis. The delivery of care demands that the nurse attend to patients in an unhurried manner without losing focus on the patient's needs. The nurse has to be resilient and develop strategies to cope with the pressure. Mindfulness helps develop a laser-like and dynamic approach to giving care with deep compassion. Onc e the nurse learns to tackle professional competence with resilience there are less chances of burnout and fatigue. Mindfulness and reflection are key factors that promote self-awareness. The practice of mindfulness helps to put forward a genuine self when dealing with colleagues and makes it easy to practice compassion and forgiveness (Pipe, et al., 2016). When nurses are under less stress their focus remains on the patient and they are able to identify small changes in the health and address issues that could have otherwise gone un-noticed. It takes a lot of effort to develop mindfulness while working under stress and challenges at the work place. With the realisation that self-awareness helps nurses to foster better relationships with patients and improve the quality of care, there is greater emphasis on training nurses in reflection and mindfulness as part of their curriculum. Nursing education aims at enhancing the role of nurses by training them in development of compassion, empathy and cultural sensitivity, so that they can deliver a higher quality of care. Stimulation of reflection in order to recognize a case of acute illness and deterioration in health parameters was studied at the Edinburgh Napier University. Narration of stories about experiences of seniors and peers helped students to incorporate reflection in their practice(Adamson Dewar, 2015).It is important for a nurse to be assertive during her communication with patients. It improves the self-esteem and therefore helps the nurse to communicate more effectively with patients (Unal, 2012). Another important component of self awareness is reflection. Reflecting upon previous decisions about a patient helps a nurse to revisit values and beliefs, skills and attitudes that were at play when dealing with a patient. Reflecting upon the steps taken to deal with a difficult patient often helps a nurse to reset the methods employed and point out to oneself any corrections required in assessing a patient. If followed in practice, it leads to greater self-awareness and the process of learning better skill becomes continuous(Billington, 2013). Higher standards of care can be met when reflection is employed for enhancing self-awareness as it leads to professional and personal development of nurse. Reflecting upon the care provided and its effect on the patient and the carer provides learning that can be learnt through practice. So, each encounter with a patient improves experience and is a step towards becoming a better care-provider (Dolphin, 2013). In conclusion, the benefits of self awareness during communication with patients has tremendous advantages. Training in being aware of the impact of interactions with patients on their health is important. The goal of developing self-awareness can be met through reflection and mindfulness. Reflecting about previous communication with patients and an analysis how the quality of communication could be improved upon is an important step towards delivering quality patient care. Following the Johari model and trying to keep the largest pane as 'open' is a good tool to modify how to understand oneself better and keep progressing towards better awareness of the self. Improving communication with patients not only helps in providing high quality care but also augments development of the self. Meeting the goal of emotional intelligence is possible through remaining mindful and self-aware. It helps to control anger and direct energy towards providing empathetic care. Incorporation of these abi lities while teaching nursing curricula underscores the importance of engaging in constructive communication with patients. the ability to engage with colleagues as a genuine self improves the dynamics among nurses and other members of the team. The team performs under pressures of medical cases that may be highly critical and fostering better communication helps them to work better as a team. Developing better insight into the nurse-patient equation helps focus on the fears and questions that the patient might face. Small and subtle changes in the condition of patient may be understood better if verbal and non-verbal communication with the patient is good. The impact of the level of communication with the patient is considerable and `remaining self -aware is key to delivering quality care. The well being of the nurse in the high pressure environment of the clinical setting is important and self-awareness is means to improve the overall functioning. 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