Theraputic Relationship

Meantime I communicated with my best with her do that she felt comfortable. Asa result, she gave a good cooperation and enjoyed the meal until finished. In my evaluating, I feel I make the right decision to accompany and assistMrs. A in feeding. Furthermore, I could develop my nurse-patient relationship. Although McCabe (2004, p. 44) would describe it as a task-centredcommunication as one of the element caused the lack communication amongnurses, but I think my nurse-patient relationship communication both involved agood patient-centred communication and task-centred communication.

In mypersonal opinion, I attended to Mrs. A as a patient to show my empathy becauseshe was unable to feed herself. It was also as my duty to feed her so that I couldmake sure the patient get the best care in the ward. So my involvement in thisnurse-patient relationship does not only restrict to the task-centredcommunication because (Burnard 1990, and Stein-Parbury 1993, cited inMcCabe 2002, p. 44) define attending as a patient-centred process as wells as tofulfil the basic conditions as a nurse to provide the genuineness, warmth andempathy towards the patient.

I was able to improve my non-verbalcommunication skills in my conversation with her during the feeding. As she washaving a hearing problem and could not communicate in the first languageproperly, so the non-verbal communication plays a role. Caris-Verhallen et al (1999, p. 809) state that the non-verbal communication becomes important whencommunicating with the elderly people who develop a hearing problem. Hollman et al (2005, p31) suggests some effective ways to maximize the communication 5 ith hearing impairment people such as always gains the person’s attentionbefore speaking, visible yourself to prevent them feel frighten and try to usesome sensitive touch. I feel this is a good experience to me because I learn todevelop my non-verbal communication. I used most of the body gesturersbecause of the language barrier was being a gap in my conversation with Mrs. A. She could speak very limited in the first language so I tried to speak in her dialect. Furthermore, Wold (2004, p. 6) mention that gesturers are one specifictype of non-verbal communication intended to express ideas and are useful for people who cannot use much words. However I also used my facial expressionsto advise her to finish the meal. It might be not so delicious because shewithdraws the meal after few scopes but I smiled and assured Mrs. A that it wasgood for her health to finish her meal. In addition, the facial expressions are mostexpressive which are not limited to certain cultural and age barriers (Wold, 2004,p. 6). Therefore my facial expression worked out to encourage her to finish themeal. Although I could not explain detail to her about the important nutrition dietthat she should take, but I could advocate her to finish the meal served becausethe meal was prepared according to her condition. In order to analysis of the event, I could evaluate that, my communicationskills are very important to provide the best nursing care to Mrs. A. Mycommunication with Mrs. A was the interpersonal communication.

This isbecause the interpersonal communication is a communication which involved of two persons (Funnell et al 2005, p. 438). I realized that my nonverbal 6 communication did help me a lot in my duty to provide the nursing care to Mrs. A. Even though she could understand few simple words when I was asking her but Inoticed that one of the problems occurs within the communication was thelanguage barrier. As the patient was not using the official language and thesecond language, I tried to speak in her language. I still could manage thecommunication in our conversation.

However, it was quite difficult to promote theeffective verbal communication with the patient. Besides, White (2005, p. 112)recommend that a nurse should learn a few words or phrases in the predominantsecond language to put a patient at ease for better understanding. Although itwas quite difficult but using the nonverbal simultaneously with the verbalcommunication did encourage her to speak on her best to make me understandher words. In the event showed that, there was a response from Mrs. A. when Iwas asking her questions. Funnel et al (2005, p. 38) point out that acommunication would occur when a person responds to a message received andassigns meaning to it. She nodded her head to assign that she agreed with me. Delaune and Ladner (2002, p. 191) explain that the channel is one of thecomponent of the communication process which act as a medium during themessage is sent out. In addition, Mrs. A also gave me a feedback that sheunderstood my message by transmitting the message via her body gesturers andeye behaviour. Thus I could consider that the communication channels used inmy conversation were visual and auditory.

Delaune and Ladner (2002, p. 191)state a feedback is that the sender receives the information after the receiver react to the message. However, Chitty and Black (2007, p. 218) define feedback 7 is a response to a message. In my situation, I was a sender who conveyed themessage receiving the information from Mrs. A, the receiver who agreed to takelunch and allow me to feed. Consequently, I could analyse that mycommunication with Mrs. A involved of five component of communication processwhich are sender, message, channel, receiver and feedback (Delaune andLadner, 2002, p. 91). In a nutshell, for my reflection of this event explores about on how thecommunication skills play a role on the nurse-patient relationship in order todeliver the nursing care towards the patient especially the adult. She neededquite sometime to adapt the ability changes in her daily activities living where Iwas trying to help her in feeding. I was concerning my feeling and thoughtsduring the feeding so that I could improve more skills in my communication. Isuccessfully communicated with her effectively as she enjoyed finishing themeal.

So it is vital to build rapport with her to encourage her ability to speak upverbally and non-verbal. Moreover, this ability could help her to communicateeffectively with other staff nurses. Later, she would not be neglected because of her age or her disability to understand the information given about her treatment. (Hyland and Donaldson 1989, cited in Harrison and Hart 2006 p. 22) mention thatcommunication express what the patients think and feel. In order to communicatewith adult, it is important to assess her common communication language andher ability to interact in the other languages.

As I used some words in her dialect,I essentially encouraged the patient to speak out verbally and communicate non- 8 verbal so that the message could be understood and do not break the nurse-patient communication. In my opinion, I evaluated that it does not a matter whether it was a patient-centred communication or task-centred communicationbecause both communication mentioned by McCabe (2004) actually doesinvolves communication to the patients. So it was not a problem to argue whichtype of communication involves in my conversation with my patient.

After analysed the situation, I could conclude that I was be able to know the skills for effective communication with the patient such as approach the patient, askingquestions, be an active listening, show my empathy and support the patientemotions (Walsh, 2005, p. 34). Actually helping the adult was a good practice indelivering the nursing care among adults. My action plan for the clinical practice in the future, if there were patientsthat I need to help in feeding or other nursing procedure, I would prepare myself better to handle with the patients who would have some difficulty incommunication.

This is because, as one of the health care worker, I want thebest care for my patients. So in related to deliver the best care to my patients, Ineed to understand them very well. I have to communicate effectively as this isimportant to know what they need most during warded under my supervision as anurse. According to my experience, I knew that communication was thefundamental part to develop a good relationship. Wood (2006, p. 13) express thata communication is the key foundation of relationship.