Foundations for Professional Practice

Explain How Therapeutic Communication Enables Person-Centred Care

While working in the field of nursing or health care, it’s important to make significant contact with other people. The therapeutic communication refers to the techniques that aim and prioritize the well being of patients mentally and physically (Sundler et al., 2020). The best way to build a trustworthy relationship between nurses and the patient is communication. The interaction of the nurses with patients is knowledgeable and provides emotional support. While treating the patients, healthcare professionals build the helping relationships in order to provide them comfortable services. Therapeutic communication does not include any social relationship between the patient and the healthcare provider. Whenever the nurse or doctor interacts with the patient they create a special bond with the patient this is because of the well being nature of therapeutic relations. The objective of this study is to explore relations between the healthcare representative and the patient (Petty et al., 2019). The therapeutic relations are essential for the psychiatrist and also for the mental health nurses. The nurse needs to know about specific information of the client’s issue in order that patient will engage in the therapeutic relation

The factors that helps to enables person-centered care through therapeutic communication includes:

Genuineness or authenticity: nurses make an important judgment call deciding to genuinely share their inner thoughts and feelings with others .The literature advised the nurses to be genuine when it comes to the patient's health .Genuineness includes consoling the patients and being genuinely concerned for their well-being (Griffiths et al., 2019). Healthcare providers give the true support instead of any scripted dialogues.
Empathy: Expressing empathy is highly effective and most powerful in the healthcare sector,which builds patient’s trust, calms their anxiety and gives good results in their health outcomes. Patients always tend to be in a very critical situation when they are not well or going through a treatment, empathy plays an important role in helping them to cope up with the anxieties that are caused by their health. A healthy communication and being there for the patient’s needs is the ultimate goal for the healthcare provider.
Mindfulness and therapeutic presence: Therapeutic presence means the ability to bring oneself to that where the mind is active on the levels like emotionally, physically, spiritually and cognitively. It is also helpful for the patient for being mentally healed by this therapy. When a healthcare professional is active at all the levels then only he or she can help the patient in the healing process because handling and consoling the patient is not an easy task.
Mutual Understanding: Mutual understanding between a healthcare provider and a patient is needed when the treatment is undertaken. The trustworthy relationship between nurses and patients should be there to provide the best possible treatment. Nurses do make patients believe about the hope of the well being and the patient also trust their knowledge that’s how treatments are done.

Discuss the Role of Inter/Intra-Professional Communication in The Provision of Clinical Handover

Inter professional communication refers to having conversation and sharing the valuable knowledge to the patient and the responsible member of the family. During the clinical handover, it's been observed that the communication error gets reduced. Interprofessional communication is very important to be done correctly for the safety and care of the patient as it is not an easy task to provide the critical information but each information should be correctly provided. The interprofessional communication builds the trust between the patient and the family (Amer, 2019). There should be an environment of respect during the interprofessional communication when clinical handover is done because of the care and safety and the responsibilities. Poor interprofessional communication can lead to the high risk of the patient’s safety. Effective communication is very necessary while undertaking the clinical handover. The improper knowledge and lack of communication cause the patient’s life as well, so it is important to communicate effectively and let the parents or patient know about the situations and the precautions that should be taken for care and safety.

Interprofessional communication can vary with the process and can pose the high risk for the safety of patients. It depends on the situation that why the clinical handover is getting done. It can be due to the discharge of a patient or shifting the hospital (Butcher et al., 2017). Another important factor is to check who is taking the authority of clinical handover of the patient whether it can be the healthcare providers of another hospital or they can be the parents of the patient. If the patient is still not well during the clinical handover then he or she should be shifted through the ambulance. The actual purpose of the clinical handover is to provide current and relevant information about the patient’s care and safety and to make sure that the patient is being transferred to the right person by interprofessional communication. There are some procedures that are made to set standards of clinical handover that includes preparing the scheduled clinical handover, another is to have and provide the relevant information regarding the patient, awareness of the goals of the patient and ensuring that the patient is handover to the responsible and accountable person (Clark et al., 2019). Therefore, the importance of interprofessional communication is highlighted in every step of the clinical handover including providing the relevant information, if the healthcare professionals do not communicate interprofessionally then it can cause the life of the patient.

Critically Reflect on The Potential Communication Barriers that May Affect Safety and Quality in Healthcare

Effective communication in healthcare organizations provides safety and quality. Whereas the barriers in communication can affect the safety and the quality of healthcare. The communication is based upon the patients as well as the health care providers. The barriers in the communication of healthcare includes:

Time Constraints: When having conversation with patients, nurses should not be in a hurry. The patients are most probably in the pain and most of the time, they are not able to express the situation and the pain. If a nurse consults them in a hurry then there is a strong possibility of risk which can affect the safety of the patient.
Environment : Environment of the healthcare organization should be pleasant and calm. If there is unpleasant noise going on in the background then it can ruin the quality of the healthcare organization. Patients are already suffering due to pain and they do not want any more pain to bother them.
Fatigue and pain: Nurses often need to collect the important information of the patient, due to the serious pain and distress, the patients are mostly not able to communicate. So, it's important to console them first and gain the data. If they provide the wrong information then it can increase the risk of safety.
Embarrassment: Embarrassment is the most common factor of the patients, as they are not comfortable in informing about the issues or being undressed in front of nurses and doctors. Embarrassment can actually lead to awkward encounters. It can be a very major barrier of the communication between doctor and patients. So, it's necessary that a healthcare professional make them comfortable to communicate the issues.

There are various barriers that can harm the patients and can affect the security or quality of the healthcare organization. It’s important to enhance the communication skills for the better services in the well being of patients.

References for Foundations for Professional Practice

Amer, K. S. (2019). Clarity and safety in communication. Interpersonal Relationships E-Book: Professional Communication Skills for Nurses, 3, 17.

Butcher, D. L., MacKinnon, K., Bruce, A., Gordon, C., & Koning, C. (2017). Experiences of pre-licensure or pre-registration health professional students and their educators in working with intra-professional teams: A qualitative systematic review. JBI database of systematic reviews and implementation reports, 15(4), 1011-1056.

Clark, L. T., Watkins, L., Piña, I. L., Elmer, M., Akinboboye, O., Gorham, M., ... & Puckrein, G. (2019). Increasing diversity in clinical trials: overcoming critical barriers. Current problems in cardiology, 44(5), 148-172.

Griffiths, A., Creese, B., Garrod, L., Chenoweth, L., & Surr, C. A. (2019). The development and use of the Assessment of Dementia Awareness and Person-centred Care Training (ADAPT) tool in long-term care. Dementia, 18(7-8), 3059-3070.

Petty, S., Dening, T., Griffiths, A., & Coleston, D. M. (2019). Importance of personal and professional experience for hospital staff in person-centred dementia care: a cross-sectional interview study using freelisting in a UK hospital ward. BMJ open, 9(4), e025655.

Sundler, A. J., Hjertberg, F., Keri, H., & Holmström, I. K. (2020). Attributes of person‐centred communication: A qualitative exploration of communication with older persons in home health care. International Journal of Older People Nursing, 15(1), e12284.

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