Nursing Communication and Its Main Aspects
The importance of efficient and productive interprofessional communication in a multidisciplinary team cannot be stressed enough. According to Al-Hamdan et al. (2018), “communication is one of the mechanisms that can specify how a positive nursing work environment can contribute to nurses’ job satisfaction” (p. 714). Nurses are the first line of interaction between the patient and the doctor, thus they are expected to develop a trusting relationship with the former that will expand onto the rest of the team. As Santos et al. (2018) also highlight, communication stands out among other competencies because interactions with patients and multidisciplinary teams are the center of nursing practice. In this essay, three different articles on various aspects of nursing communication will be reviewed, and the main arguments from each will be outlined and evaluated.
Article 1
Andre, B., Nost, T. H., Frigstad, S. A., & Sjovold, E. (2016). Differences in communication within the nursing group and with members of other professions at a hospital unit. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 26(7-8), 956-963.
Annotation
Multidisciplinary team have proved to be rather effective when it comes to patient treatment, thus, this approach has been implemented into the healthcare system. However, adoption of interprofessional collaboration methods led to the unexpected difficulties in communication, especially among nurses. The suspected reasons behind these difficulties include education misalignments, differences in traditions and connection building, as well as varied status and autonomy of team members (Andre et al. 2016). The study conducted by Andre et al. (2018) in form of a cross-sectional survey revealed that for nurses, it is easier and more comfortable to interact with each other than members of other departments.
The findings state that nurses possess the necessary skills to enhance the interprofessional communication and strengthen patient’s trust. Despite that, nurses often failed to reach the necessary empathy levels during communications with other team members who were not nurses, further compromising themselves. Mixed emotions and assertiveness influenced nurses’ behavior and led to difficulties in interpersonal communication. Moreover, they often experienced feelings of inadequacy and inferiority towards non-nursing members of multidisciplinary teams, which also complicated the communication process. Seeing as nurses hold the key position in the effective interprofessional collaboration, it is imperative to ensure that they possess and develop the necessary communication skills, as well as show more confident behavior.
The target audience of this study is nurses, as they remain the main element of efficient connection between multidisciplinary teams and patients. The study emphasizes the ultimate necessity of obtaining and developing the communication skills, and implementing them into clinical work.
Article 2
Song, H.-S., Choi, J. Y., & Son, Y.-J. (2017). The relationship between professional communication competences and nursing performance of Critical Care Nurses in South Korea. International Journal of Nursing Practice, 23(5).
Annotation
Effective communication can go many ways: it allows to build better relationships both with the patient and within the team, creates productive environment, and helps maintain interprofessional connections. However, there is another, unobvious advantage of competent communication – it can prevent burnout, especially in the critical care department. The study conducted by Song et al. (2017) reviews the correlation between high level of professional communication skills and actual nursing performance in the intensive care unit. According to Song et al. (2017), better competence at communication directly influences possible treatment outcome by allowing the nurses to improve their performance. The authors conducted an anonymous survey of the critical care nurses in South Korea, evaluating their performance and communication competence.
The results show that high levels of performance among nurses are strongly associated with the well-developed communication skills. Intensive care nurses are more prone to burnout