Communication Techniques in Nursing

The way you communicate with others in personal and public arenas reflects a lot about your personality. If you are communicating positively then you would obviously get a same kind of response and vibes (unless you encounter a jerk!). Pertaining to all this, since the past few years, communication skills and techniques have gained a lot of importance in almost all the professions. It is more so with professions where you meet numerous people like hospitality, public relations, human resources, health care, media and so on. But the field where communication has an impact which can really make the other person's life better is nursing within health care. The way a nurse deals with the patients is extremely important for the well-being of the patient, mentally and physically.

Techniques of Communication in Nursing

General Techniques

Speaking or Verbal Communication: If most of us would not have been able to speak, I wonder what we all would have done. I mean, just try and gauge the amount of time we spend speaking and talking in a day! But coming back to nursing, nurses or any other type of care givers need to speak clearly first of all. Maintaining slow, even tone helps the patient to understand what they want to say. Once they put across the point, wait for the patient to respond. Nursing requires you to be slow and gentle, so not rushing thorough is one of the techniques for communicating effectively.

Non-verbal Communication: When dealing with patients who cannot hear well, nurses ideally need to use hands along with speech to tell what they want to say. Further, they also need to look out for non verbal cues they are reflecting - the body language, voice and so on. Please say the things which you are convinced about. Use other methods like writing or drawing out pictures and the likes so that the patient gets to know what you want to say if he or she is unable to understand you. Even silence can work wonders.

These and the few other things like helpful behavior and positive mentality are important components of skills required for nursing practice.

Therapeutic Communication Techniques

Attention: To attract and hold the patient's attention and to add a personal touch, use the name of the patient. Similarly, just as you would call the patient by his or her name, it is always nice to introduce yourself too. It adds a comfort level to the interaction and lays the foundation for a good rapport. Other things which can ensure a nurse the optimum attention from a patient are: checking out on their basic needs, avoiding distractions, having an eye contact and few other seemingly insignificant things, which are, however, very crucial.

Behavior: While dealing with patients, a nurse should empathize and acknowledge the mentality of the patient. A nurse's behavior should reflect that and if that is not the case, it does communicate many things to the patient. Encouragement is another essential factor in case of patient care. Already the patient is sort of demoralized and if the nurse discourages the patient on top of it, the patient would have it. So, encouragement works wonders. Generally being helpful, concerned, bright and friendly is the best therapeutic behavioral technique.

Help in Dealing with Disorientation: Hospitalization is a very traumatic experience for the elderly and thus they might tend to get disoriented. So, if they say something which is not true, just calmly tell them the truth in a normal tone, without challenging what they have said. If patients are dealing with memory loss, give them gentle and polite reminders all the time. Show them or tell them how to do a particular thing.

Be Interactive: Wherever and whenever possible, a patient should be included in decision-making. After all, it is about the patient. Let the patient be communicated as if he or she is in control. Avoid talking about patients to others as if they do not exist. Being interactive does not mean that you nag or pester the patient to open up. Let the patient open up and express his or her feelings only when they want to. Do not rush into that.

The above was just a glimpse of what are the fundamentals in it. There are many more requirements for nursing like being patient, being clear, listening to the patient and so on. As one gains experience, he or she imbibes these qualities.

To cut a long story short, the penultimate aim is to make the patient feel better and foster a feeling that he or she is going to be just fine. If you do that, there is nothing as satisfying as that for all the Florence Nightingales out there!