Nurse-Patient therapeutic relationship

Nurse-patient therapeutic relationship

Introduction

The topic is based on the Nurse-patient therapeutic relationship. Hospitals are becoming more complex, patients are living longer with chronic illness, and insurance companies are reducing lengths of stay. Effective communication is essential to promote patient safety. Nurses perform handoffs during a shift change in the hospital, which consists of the incoming nurse being briefed on his or her patients? status by the departing nurse. Poor communication during this process, including poor listening skills, jeopardizes patient care. Accurate and timely information is imperative to prevent poor patient outcomes. Effective patient outcomes results from positive communication in nurse-to-nurse and nurse-to-patient relationships. Poor communication among nurses causes stress and negatively affects job satisfaction. Time and motion studies in the hospital setting indicate caregivers spend a significant amount of time collecting and giving information. It is an indicated effective communication reduces stress and workload. This phenomenon indicates that nurses need to share all information about patients and processes (Lavoie-Tremblay, 2008).

Patient satisfaction is directly related to good and timely communication. Timely distribution of test and procedure results prevents the patient and family from unnecessary worry and concern. Timely results expedite patient discharge. The World Wide Web enables patients to search for information about his or her illness, and patients expect detailed information when in the hospital. If there is a communication breakdown, patient length of stay increases, poor service increases, and employee turnover increases. A breakdown of communication can be the result of being caught off guard and an angry question is asked. The individuals can become defensive, which may negatively affect the relationship between the individuals, whether they are nurses, physicians, patients, or family. This breakdown among caregivers is not limited to nursing; it extends to other departments including radiology, laboratory, and discharge planning. Hospital administrators need to identify any breakdown or bottlenecks in communication and correct the issues. Administrators should be aware caregivers who are available 24 hours per day become stressed because of over communication, which affects nurse retention. Improvement of nursing care at the bedside must include effective communication, teamwork, and processes, which improve competency. Nurses walking rounds is one method in which improvement is seen at the bedside. Errors are reduced when nurses round with physicians because the nurse hears the physicians direct order. A perception of safety by nursing staff and patients is an outcome of walking rounds. Daily rounding encourages communication with patients and families. They suggested rounding by clinical staff and nurse managers would improve communication and ensure views of the patients, family, and staff are understood. Rounding would identify issues before they become complaints. Good communication between nurses and families improve nursing morale (Tomson, 2007).

Discussion

Many researchers' in the nursing field have described evidence of nurse suffering and distress as the result of toxic work environments and unreasonable demands placed upon the time and energy of nurses. Caring-healing is a term coined by Watson to describe the nurses' authentic presence, caring-healing modalities and nursing therapeutics. In the caring-healing environment the nurse ...