COMMUNICATION

Communication in Health & Social Care



Communication in Health & Social Care

Learning Outcomes 1

In learning outcomes 1, there will be an exploration that how the communication skills are needed to be used in health and social care.

Applicable Theories of Communication in the Contexts of Health and Social Care

Theory is basically a collection of ideas that may be used for understanding, explaining, and making anticipations about something. Relevant theories of communication show a path by which the communication can be analysed and understood between individuals (patients) and the care giver (practitioners and nurses) more effectively, and they can be able to do work more efficiently.

There are whole host of communication theories that may be used in the contexts of health and social care. Any definitive coverage to the theoretical models is not available to the practitioners of healthcare but some theories have been chosen for covering the broad range of this context. The models that have been chosen are selected on the basis of their popularity and suitability in the communication of health and social care. The chosen theoretical models entail wide-ranging approaches that are used in various projects of communication in the area of health and social care.

The two types of theoretical models of effective communication in health and social care settings are as follows:

Cognitive Theories

Stage-step Theories

Cognitive Theories

These theories offer continuum patterns of behaviours and propose that a specific set of beliefs and perceptions will anticipate behaviour (Rutter & Quine, 2002, p. 15). The Theory of Planned Behaviour and the Health Belief Model are also examined by the cognitive theories, and are applied to the contexts of health communication (Ajzen & Becker, 1980 & 1974, n.d).

Stage-Step Theories

These theories presume that the persons are not in a continuum but at a 'stage' or 'step'. Every stage on the model is an upward move towards realising any particular behaviour. The theories of stage-step suppose that the person proceeds further through a process of change through sequence of steps (Prochaska & Diclemente, 1983, n.d).

Figure 1 - The Communication Cycle by which the communication message moves forward towards understanding (Burnard, 1992, p. n.d).

Effective Communication Skills in Health and Social Care

In simple words, communication is the two-way process that occurs between the senders and receivers of messages and minimum two or more individuals are involved in the process. At some places, communication must need to be highly effective as it is essential to be effective in health and social care settings.

Effective communication is much above than just conversing, and is necessary for the welfare of the patients. It involves facial expressions, body language, gestures, appearance, and positioning. It is significant to be known of the tactics of non-verbal communication especially for interacting with patients in health care settings. In health and social care contexts, it is impracticable to do care for patients without effective communication. If there is ineffective communication then the overall medical care or treatment could be misunderstood. There is a need to communicate with patients, clients, residents, health-care ...