Medical staff communication to the patient and their families is important in the nursing practice. Communication can influence the level of care that a profession offers to a patient. Quality information from the patient and their families helps healthcare professionals in understanding the patient’s problem, which aids in the provision of a holistic type of care. Thus, nurses require medical knowledge in addressing the diseases as well as creative and independent capability, to comprehensively assess the patient’s problem. Therefore, this nursing capability over their patient is likely to inspire pride in the professional achievement and nursing profession such that they tend to diminish the role of the patients and their families in the whole care process. Thus, nurses ought to understand their position in the healthcare process and the role of the patient and their families for more effective results in care delivery.
Background Information
Good communication skills are crucial in the provision of professional nursing services. According to Kim and Sim (2020), good communication skills involve the application of both non-verbal and verbal indications to sufficiently deliver the information that other individual desires. Effective communication in the healthcare setting aids in an in-depth understanding of the patient's problems, logical analysis of situations, and solving all complicated issues affecting one's health. Kim and Sim (2020) assert that effective communication among nurses strengthens their problem-solving capabilities as well as their perceived professionalism. Thus, a communication competency among nurses helps in forming good relationships with their patients and families, which helps in the provision of a patient-centered type of care.
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Interaction between healthcare professional and their families tends to take various forms in different contexts. For instance, the communication between nurses and the patients’ families on some occasions is not peaceful. Calha et al. (2018) assert that nurses face various problematic situations daily, which are stressful to their moral, ethical, physical, and emotional perspective. Some of the problematic situations that nurses encounter are being involved in physical, psychological, and verbal violence with patients' families inside and outside the hospital. In most cases, the patients' families fail to handle the illness and the pain of a loved one in a rational way, which tends to affect the way they associate with the healthcare professional. Thus, the nurse has a moral dilemma of knowing how to deal with the patients' families who at times fail to admit the real situation.
The nurse’s moral distress tends to cause internal conflict that jeopardizes the professional’s performance as well as interpersonal relationships. Calha et al. (2018) assert that both nurse's care delivery and patient's recovery process are influenced by the uncomfortable issues and problems, which are common in the daily functioning of the healthcare professionals. Communication to patients and families is an issue that requires significant attention because nurses in their daily functioning have to make decisions that have moral implications that can provoke conflicts and tensions. Calha et al. (2018) assert that these conflicting situations are capable of compromising the quality and efficiency of healthcare. Thus, good communication is crucial in the healthcare setup to reduce hospital stays, reduce stress and anxiety among family members, and minimize internal conflicts among nurses to improve care delivery processes.
Nursing Theory
The Pender's health promotion model (HPM) can be used to ensure effective communication in the healthcare setting. HPM model was developed in the year 1982 and later changed in 1996 (Khoshnood et al., 2018). The model seeks to change unhealthy behaviors and promote healthy living (Khoshnood et al., 2018). HPM theory is developed based on two theories, Fishbein and Albert Bandura's social learning theory (1977). The self-efficacy in Bandura's social cognitive theory acts as the patient's point of motivation to behavioral change. On the other hand, Fishbein’s expectancy-value theory supports the belief that people are likely to invest resources when they anticipate positive results. Thus, Patients are likely to invest in goals that seem achievable and are beneficial to them. HPM model was developed to aid in education, research and practice.
Application of the HPM Model
The HPM model is appropriate in influencing effective communication between nurses to patients and their families. According to Khoshnood et al. (2018), the HPM model seeks to help patients achieve a high level of wellbeing by identifying all the background factors that influence health behaviors. This model encourages nurses to avail all the positive resources that are necessary for the patients’ to achieve certain behavioral changes (Khodaveisi et al., 2017). Thus, by adopting the HPM model the nurse can collaborate with the patient to change behaviors for healthy living. Using the HPM model, nurses can also understand determinants of health behaviors to use as a basis of counseling to promote a healthy lifestyle. The HPM model focuses on three components which are behavioral outcomes, behavior-specific cognitions, and individual characteristics. The HPM model's main assumptions are, patients actively regulate their behaviors and change their environment. Additionally, the patient-environment interactions change a person’s behavior, in which the nurses and physicians play an integral role in developing an interpersonal environment.
Individual experiences and characteristics in the HPM model involve biological, personal, socio-cultural, and psychological factors. All these individual factors are influenced by a nurse’s communication behavior and have an outcome on the patient's health (Chye & Caires, 2016). Thus, a communication model is the best strategy that can be used in motivating patients towards self-efficacy. Using a communication model, the nurses can tailor all the information presented to the patients to a sixth-grade reading level so that it is effectively understood. More so, the number of messages prescribed to the patients should be less than three specific points, which are then accompanied by supporting statements (Chye & Caires, 2016). More so, a nurse can influence the way the patient and their families accept the message by showing interest, concern, empathy, and friendliness. Thus, healthcare professionals can greatly affect how the information is received if they develop trust with the patients and their families.
By effectively applying the communication theory, a nurse can influence and create positive behavioral changes in a patient. For instance, good communication can make a patient adhere perfectly to the medical prescriptions as well as attend all the medical appointments (Chye & Caires, 2016). Thus, nurses ought to involve the patients and their families in the treatment processes by informing them of all the risks and benefits of certain treatment procedures. Thus a good communication model will enable the nurse to express their concerns about the possible side effects of certain treatment plans. Therefore, by availing the individualized treatment plans nurses avail an opportunity for the patients and their families to be involved in the decision-making processes for effective results (Khodaveisi et al., 2017). As an approach to ensure that the nurses are conversant with the communication model, it would be important that the nurses are trained on the communication model that would aid in providing a more holistic type of care.
Conclusion
Staff to patient and family communication is important in the healthcare process. Nurses ought to acknowledge the roles of the patients and their families in the healthcare processes. Ineffective communication between nurses and healthcare professionals affects care delivery processes due to the psychological exhaustion among the healthcare workers. More so, it negatively affects the health outcome of the patients. This problem is likely to continue affecting the healthcare delivery process as nurses are involved with decisions provoking conflicts and tensions among patients and their families daily. Thus as an approach to address the communication problem, the HPM model is adopted, which focuses on the individual characteristic component and behavior outcomes. Therefore as an approach to influence the individual's characteristics, the nurses adopt a communication model strategy. This communication strategy would ensure that the patients and their families are more involved in their care delivery processes.
References
Calha, A., Silva, A. & Vieira, N. (2018). Communication problems between nurses and patient's families. Supplemento Digital Rev ROL Enferm, 41(11), 21-25.
Chye, Y. & Caires, A. (2016). The health promotion model in HIV care. Aquichan, 16(4), 418-429.
Khodaveisi, M. Omidi, A., Faroksi, S. & Soltanian, A. (2017). The effect of Pender’s health promotion model in improving the nutritional behavior of overweight and obese women. International Journal of Community Based Nursing of Midwifery, 5(2), 165-174.
Khoshnood, Z., Rayyani, M. & Tirgari, B. (2018). Theory analysis of Pender’s health promotion model (HPM) by Barnum’s criteria: A critical perspective. International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health, 32(4).
Kim, A. & Sim, O. (2020). Communication skills, problem-solving ability, understanding of patients’ conditions, and nurse’s perception of professionalism among clinical nurses: A structural equation model analysis. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(1), 1-14.
