Nursing Communication Techniques Quiz

Nursing as an Art: Communicating

• Identifying ways to apply critical thinking to communication is crucial
• Using five levels of communication with patients is essential
• Understanding the circular transactional communication process is key
• Incorporating helping relationship features during interactions with patients is important
• Recognizing a nurse's communication approaches throughout the nurse-patient helping relationship's four phases is important
• Identifying the desired outcomes of nurse-health care team member relationships is necessary

Communication and Nursing Practice

• Nursing practice is a lifelong learning process
• Therapeutic communication fosters patients' personal growth and achievement of health-related goals
• Nurse-patient relationships heavily depend on communication
• Patient safety relies on effective communication
• Communication improves patient outcomes and increases satisfaction

Communication and Interpersonal Relationships

• Communication builds caring and healing relationships
• Relating to others is crucial for interpersonal communication
• Communication (posture, expressions, gestures, and attitudes) influences individuals' well-being
• All behavior communicates and influences others' behavior
• Experts in communication convey caring by exhibiting sensitivity toward self and others
• Expressing feelings positively and negatively is integral to effective communication
• Developing caring relationships fosters faith and hope, promoting interpersonal teaching and learning, and providing supportive environments
• Providing a supportive environment enables human needs to be met and spiritual expression
• The Joint Commission (TJC) emphasized effective communication for patient and family-centered care, cultural competence, and improved patient safety
• Skilled communication prioritizes patient autonomy and decision-making
• Gaining experience with communication necessitates understanding the communication process and considering experiences as a nurse

Developing Communication Skills

• Critical thinking improves communication in assessing and caring for patients
• Critical thinking motivates nurses to implement innovative solutions
• Self-confidence is important to patients' responses to nurses
• Humility is key to successful communication and intervention
• Integrity allows nurses to manage opinions that conflict with patients' opinions and to make crucial decisions toward mutually beneficial outcomes
• Thinking is influenced by perception and five senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell)
• Culture influences perceptions and biases
• Critical thinking helps nurses overcome stereotypes and biases
• Emotional intelligence is important for nurses to understand their emotions and those of others, developing effective therapeutic relationships

Communication Throughout the Nursing Process

• Nurses use verbal and written interviews to collect data
• Observations using the senses (visual, tactile, auditory) are crucial for comprehensive data gathering
• Comprehensive data is gathered via medical records, literature review, diagnostic tests
• Assessment findings are analyzed to identify health needs/priorities; nurses discuss this directly with patients
• Health care team planning sessions are critical for implementation methods
• Documentation of expected outcomes is important
• Verbal discussion and written referrals are essential to facilitate the collaborative efforts of the health care team
• Provision of support and therapeutic communication techniques is part of the implementation phase
• Documentation and comparison of expected/actual outcomes is important to evaluate the effectiveness of the care plan revision
• Patient communication and feedback help to modify the care plan

Challenging Communication Situations

• Effective communication with individuals who are silent, withdrawn, depressed, have special needs, or exhibit anger/confrontation is vital
• It is important to address patient needs, actively listen, and offer assistance where necessary
• Effective communication helps to de-escalate or address challenging behaviors when possible

Levels of Communication

• Intrapersonal communication (internal conversations) impacts perception, feelings, behavior, and self-esteem in nurses
• Nurses can use intrapersonal communication to help cultivate self-awareness and positive self-esteem essential for appropriate self-expression
• In effective communication, listening is a key skill. Good communication involves expressing and exchanging feelings and ideas, making decisions, working on teams, and personal development
• Small-group communication often involves goal-directed interaction
• Public communication is communication with groups; nurses use this to present health-related issues, or share scholarly work

Elements of the Communication Process

• Communication is an ongoing, continuous, and dynamic process
• The process is influenced by changing people and environments

Circular Transactional Model

• The model includes the referent, sender, receiver, message, channel, environment, feedback, and interpersonal variables
• Each participant in a communication interaction acts as a sender and receiver simultaneously
• Feedback from the receiver helps communicators correct or validate communication
• Complementary and symmetrical role relationships are involved
• The environment influences communication, such as perception, attitude, and potential reactions

Components of the Circular Transactional Model

• The referent motivates communication
• The sender encodes and delivers a message, the receiver decodes it
• The message is the content of communication; effective messages are clear, verbal, and non-verbal
• Feedback indicates understanding
• Interpersonal variables (factors like perceptions, culture, expectations) influence communication
• Communication unsuccessful when senders/receivers cannot translate each other's language or phrases
• Effective medical communication avoids unnecessary medical jargon/acronyms

Forms of Communication

• Verbal communication (spoken or written words, denotative and connotative meanings)
• Nonverbal communication (physical appearance and manner, posture, gait, facial expressions, eye contact)
• Gestures/sounds communicate feelings and thoughts.

Zones of Personal Space

• Intimate, Personal, Socio-Consultative, Public

Professional Nursing Relationships

• A nurse's knowledge, behavior, and commitment to ethics form professional relationships
• Therapeutic relationships help facilitate positive growth

Nurse-Patient Caring Relationship

• Pre-interaction (reviewing data, talking with others)
• Orientation (creating a tone of care, recognizing tentative stages)
• Working (encouraging expression, understanding, helping patient set goals)
• Termination (evaluating goals and transitioning care)

Nurse-Family Relationships

• Nurse-family relationships require applying similar strategies to one-on-one relationships, understanding family dynamics
• Critical attention to communication in family-related settings is essential

Nurse-Health Care Team Relationships

• Using a common communication tool (like the SBAR method) improves the perception of communication between healthcare providers

Nurse-Community Relationships

• Nurses form relationships with community groups (organizations/volunteering)
• Nurses can contribute as effective agents of change

Elements of Professional Communication

• Appearance/Demeanor/Behavior:
• Courtesy (introducing yourself, addressing people by name)
• Trustworthiness (consistency, reliability, demonstrating competence, respect)
• Assertiveness (expressing feelings, ideas)