Analysis of Nurses' Verbal Communication With Patients

Authors

  • Darle Forrest

Abstract

Nursing educators and practitioners recognize the importance of a nurse's ability to communicate effectively with patients (La Monica, 1979; Travelbee, 1971). The question is, do nurses employ the kinds of communicative behaviours believed by a number of researchers (Brammer, 1979; Carkhuff, 1969; Carkhuff & Berenson, 1977; Egan, 1975) to be therapeutic for patients? Some kind of communication, verbal and/or nonverbal, occurs during every encounter a nurse has with a patient. "No matter how one may try, one cannot not communicate. Activity or inactivity, words or silence all have message value" (Watzlawick, Beavin, & Jackson, 1967, pp. 48-49). Maslow (1965) has pointed out that "every person is a psychotherapeutic influence or a psychopathogenic on everybody he has contact with . . ." (p. 77). Carkhuff and Berenson (1977) charge that the interactions between helpers and helpees have a "for better or for worse" effect upon the helpee (p. 5; p. 228). Accordingly, the communication of a nurse forms a vital component of patient care _ for good or for ill. In defining therapeutic communication Rossiter (1975) suggests communication can be therapeutic for a patient in two ways: by eliciting "accurate" information which in turn affects patient care, and secondly, in and of itself, communication has health promoting effects.

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Published

1983-04-13

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Section

Articles