Education Of Patient-Physician Communication

Choosing the Communication Model

Discuss About The Education Patient Physician Communication.

Communication is a process through which, meaningful conversations take place, using which healthcare professionals are able to understand the patient concerns, Using an effective communication, meaningful messages are generated by one person and received by another person that creates a circle of conversation (O’Toole, 2016). This process is mainly utilized by healthcare counsellors so that different stable and unstable mental conditions of the patients can be easily accessed through effective communication technique. Patient counselling is a broader aspect in which concepts like healthcare professionals care, knowledge of their concern and their ability to share these with unknown but relatable healthcare professionals included (Silverman, Kurtz & Draper, 2016). There are different models for effective communication while communicating with a patient suffering from mental, physical or social trauma, such as the Shannon and Weaver model, Schramm model, constructionist model, linear, interactive, transactional and communication cycle related models (Hargie, 2016). In this following essay, a case study of a 65 year old patient Nicos will be discussed who is unable to keep himself active after selling his farms. In the below sections a communication model will be chosen that can help Nicos to overcome his depression with a critical reflection on the way this communication was conducted.  Further, barriers and the methods used to overcome the barrier will be discussed. Finally a section will be included in which the other health professionals that will be included in the care plan will be discussed with some ethical considerations of the communication process.

As a counsellor while communicating with Nicos, the interactive model of communication was chosen. This is the most effective way of communication as during the process, it makes the other person believe that their messages observed and listening with complete concentration (Wouda & van de Wiel, 2013). Transmission and receiving of messages or concerns are active and reaches to the listener effectively and hence, effective and proper action can be taken. While communicating with Nicos, I chose this communication model and started interacting with his Nicos and Barbara. The primary thing which I noticed about Nicos that he was not suffering from any social discrimination or family issues, but he felt isolated because he was not being able to stay active and involved like he used to stay while working for his farm (Olsson et al., 2012. Further, they were hesitant while seeing a counsellor as they were afraid of the social comments they will be facing from their close relative or their children know about Nicos’s misery (Wouda & van de Wiel, 2013). Hence, in this situation, the patient should be informed about the effectiveness of this session and should assure that the counselling session will make him feel better. To build rapport with the client, on interactive communication model will help as it demands the counselors to stay calm and composed while carrying a conversation with the client (Martin & Nakayama, 2013). Further, showing empathy and listen to all the details the patient carefully as it can impact the patient positively. This is an important aspect as building a positive rapport can help the counsellor to extract the inner thoughts of the client and understand the extent up to which the patient is depressed and the way he can be improved from that depression. The effective communication strategy under interactive model that could be used to communicate with Nicos is observing, listening and asking question (Arnold & Boggs, 2015). This is the most effective strategy to communicate with Nicos as implementation of this does not require any complex setting and it could be carried out anywhere. The implementation of this strategy would require a calm place with Nicos and Barbara. Firstly, Nicos will be made familiar with the process and will be conveyed the importance and effectiveness of the process, after which he will be asked few questions related to his daily activity and his farm so that he can relate to the discussion instantly and can connect to the counseling (Martin & Nakayama, 2013). While listening to his concerns, I will be observing his body language so that I can figure out which action of his farming work or his social life is able to make him happy so that I can include that in his intervention. Finally, I will ask some close ended and open ended questions so that a deep knowledge of his misery and loneliness can be assessed. Throughout this process, his wife Barbara will also be asked several questions as she observed the isolation and misery in her husband primarily (Olsson et al., 2014).

Overcoming Communication Barriers

Besides these success, there might be some barriers that can affect the success of the effective communication driven counselling session of Nicos. The communication barrier is the aspect due to which the counseling process can be compromised (O’Toole, 2016). These barriers are cultural barriers, language related barriers, health literacy barriers and so on. It has been observed through researches that people with poor literacy skills are unable to understand health related interventions and implement that in their life. Due to this disparity in communication, people generally misinterpret the communicated information and apply it wrongly in their lifestyle. Thorne, Oliffe and Stajduhar (2013) also determined that language and cultural barriers of effective communication is also linked to health literacy as the terms used in counseling or the strategies to improve patients stressful condition is not being adapted by the patient. This barrier remains unnoticed maximum times. The second barrier is the primary barrier while providing care to a patient, which is cultural barrier Cultural disparities, may become a hindrance to effective communication (Olsson et al., 2014). The cultural awareness of health, sickness, and medical care of patients and families differ from one another as well as with that of the clinicians or organization. In this scenario, Nicos might feel that as a counselor I am interrupting in his personal thoughts and feelings and hence, may hesitate while sharing his personal thoughts and believes (Parry, Land & Seymour, 2014). Thirdly, the language related barrier as Nicos belongs to Greek Australian community and he might not be able to understand the language I speak, hence, language can also be a barrier to the communication process. Further, to overcome the process, there are several skills that should be implemented in the counseling process for Nicos. Such as, while treating the patient I will be taking care of his cultural and behavioral preferences so that he can feel that his cultural understandings are being taken care of. Further, while communicating I will try to use lucid and effective terms and concepts so that he can easily interpret the meanings can respond to my close ended or open-ended questions (Bramhall, 2014). Thirdly, to deal with health literacy related barriers I will be educating Nicos about each of his health and mental states and will communicate his interventions in an easy way so that he and his wife Barbara can implement that in Nicos’s daily activities (Parry, Land & Seymour, 2014).

Ethical Considerations and Recommendations

While providing counseling care to Nicos, I have to maintain ethical consideration of healthcare and should provide the four primary healthcare ethical rights to the patients such as autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence and justice so that in any situation, patient does not feel that his personal rights and privacy is being tampered or interrupted by the service I am providing him (McGillivray et al., 2012). Further, after assessing the mental condition of the Nicos, I would refer him to a fitness expert and physiotherapist so that he can make Nicos busy. I would also ask him to create a small rooftop farm or a small garden at his place and take care of that so that he can make himself active and busy all the day. I will discuss the previous and current physical activity of Nicos with the fitness expert and will ask him to add several physical exercises for him, including weight lifting exercises’ so that he can feel the same physical strain he used to feel while working in his farm (Geldard, Geldard & Foo, 2017). Moreover, while discussing these patient details I will maintain the privacy related ethical consideration of the patient. This is an important ethical consideration, as while counseling related conversation; the patient will share his complete personal thoughts and details to me because of the rapport I will create with him. However, the fitness expert or the occupational therapist with whom, I will discuss the state of Nicos does not require those information and sharing those details with them will violate the ethical principles of patient security (McGillivray et al., 2012). Hence, while discussing the details of Nicos I will take care of these ethical considerations.

While concluding the assignment, it should be mentioned that communication is an effective tool for patient assessment and counselors as well as clinicians should possess effective communication skills to understand the patient’s physical and mental condition. In the assignment the discussion was related to the case of Nicos, who at the age of 65 feeling isolated or miserable as his only source of activity, his farm has been sold. His wife Barbara asks me to counsel him and while counseling Nicos, I critically discuss that entire situation in this assignment. I chose an interactive communication method and strategy to communicate with Nicos. Several barriers of the effective communication and the way to overcome them were mentioned in this assignment. Further ethical considerations and the way those were protected have been mentioned with the help of recent literatures.

References

Arnold, E. C., & Boggs, K. U. (2015). Interpersonal Relationships-E-Book: Professional Communication Skills for Nurses. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Bramhall, E. (2014). Effective communication skills in nursing practice. Nursing Standard (2014+), 29(14), 53.

Geldard, K., Geldard, D., & Foo, R. Y. (2017). Counselling children: A practical introduction. Sage.

Hargie, O. (2016). Skilled interpersonal communication: Research, theory and practice. Routledge.

Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2013). Intercultural communication in contexts. New York: NY: McGraw-Hill.

McGillivray, G., Rosenfeld, J. A., McKinlay Gardner, R. J., & Gillam, L. H. (2012). Genetic counselling and ethical issues with chromosome microarray analysis in prenatal testing. Prenatal Diagnosis, 32(4), 389-395.

Olsson, E., Ingman, P., Ahmed, B., & Sporrong, S. K. (2014). Pharmacist–patient communication in Swedish community pharmacies. Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy, 10(1), 149-155.

O’Toole, G. (2016). Communication-eBook: Core Interpersonal Skills for Health Professionals, Ed. 3^rd, pp. 123-145,  Elsevier Health Sciences.

Parry, R., Land, V., & Seymour, J. (2014). How to communicate with patients about future illness progression and end of life: a systematic review. BMJ supportive & palliative care, 4(4), 331-341.

Silverman, J., Kurtz, S., & Draper, J. (2016). Skills for communicating with patients. CRC Press.

Thorne, S., Oliffe, J. L., & Stajduhar, K. I. (2013). Communicating shared decision-making: cancer patient perspectives. Patient Education and Counseling, 90(3), 291-296.

Wouda, J. C., & van de Wiel, H. B. (2013). Education in patient–physician communication: How to improve effectiveness?. Patient education and counseling, 90(1), 46-53.