Therapeutic communication is the cornerstone of all nurse-patient interactions and is essential to conducting a successful patient interview. A nurse must establish rapport and build therapeutic relationships with patients in order to gather comprehensive and relevant information. Throughout a patient interview, the nurse utilizes therapeutic communication techniques to encourage a patient to share their story. During my patient interaction exercise, I was able to utilize many of these techniques to obtain relevant information from my patient which would be utilized to further assess, diagnose, plan, intervene, and evaluate my patient. After conducting this interview and watching the recording, I observed several therapeutic techniques that I demonstrated well and others that need improvement. Some of my strengths included active listening and nonverbal communication; yet, I believe improvements could be made in my guided questioning technique and transitioning ability.
In general, I felt as though guided questioning came fairly naturally during my interview; however, watching the interview back, I realized I had neglected portions of the patient’s social history. For example, I discovered after my interview concluded that my patient’s first language was not English. Knowing this would have been extremely important in ensuring she received proper healthcare, education, and may have resulted in the use of a translator during the interview. My patient was also 70 years of age, so obtaining information regarding her employment status and family dynamics would have been important to understanding psychosocial factors. Utilizing proper guided questioning would have allowed for a more holistic patient-centered care and minimized the opportunity to miss critical patient details.
In addition, transitioning between topics of the interview was another therapeutic communication technique that was lacking during my interview. I witnessed myself simply going down the list of questions pertaining to each topic (i.e. history of present illness, past medical history, medications, etc.) and not truly directing the interview with my patient. Being clear and informing the patient when you’re changing directions in an interview can help them feel more at ease and gives them a greater sense of control. Consequently, omitting the use of transitions inhibited my patient’s ability to expand on or introduce more information about topics discussed or not addressed.
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Despite missing some key pieces of information in the interview and my inability to transition between topics, I felt my greatest strengths were my ability to actively listen to my patient and the effective use of nonverbal communication. Active listening requires listening and observing with all senses and using verbal and non-verbal cues to encourage the speaker to expand. It requires undivided attention and cannot exist if the mind is distracted. Thus, I made it a point to avoid thinking about the next question while my patient was responding to the previous question. There were a few instances during the interview where I felt that documentation was hindering my ability to be an active listener, but I was able to correct that during the interview by simply documenting key points, instead of trying to transcribe every detail. Moreover, throughout the interview, I used nonverbal communication by actively attempting to mirror my patient – matching her posture, voice, and eye contact. Throughout my past professional career, I have been around varying cultures and learned that nonverbal communication is the key to being culturally sensitive and making people feel comfortable.
Furthermore, I believe this exercise was extremely beneficial and allowed me to recognize areas that require my attention the next time I communicate with a patient. Ultimately, I believe my therapeutic communication techniques will improve with experience. I have conducted interviews with patients before; however, becoming a nurse is an entirely new role and requires improvements in these techniques to ensure I am building a healing relationship with my patients through therapeutic communication (Potter & Perry et al., 2017). Gaining more experience with conducting interviews will also enable me to feel more comfortable using guided questioning and including transitions in an effort to gather the most comprehensive and relevant information.
References
- Hogan-Quigley, B., Palm, M. L., Bickley, L. S., & Bates, B. (2017). Bates’ Nursing Guide to Physical Examination and History Taking (2nd ed.). Wolters Kluwer.
- Potter, P. A., Perry, A. G., Hall, A., & Stockert, P. A. (2017). Fundamentals of nursing (9th ed.). Mosby Elsevier.
