Effective Healthcare Communication Research Articles

The Development of an Instructional Model Based on the Theory of Goal Attainment to Improve Communication Skills for Continuing Education

This study investigates the factors influencing the development of communication skills among students at The People's Hospital of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Recognizing the pivotal role of effective communication in healthcare, the research aims to identify key elements, such as the learning process, environment, teachers, and students, that significantly impact the acquisition of communication skills in a medical education context. The sample group was 30 students from The People's Hospital of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The research was conducted in three steps: studying the factors that affect the development of communication skills, developing the instructional model, and the experimental and improvement process. The research instruments were a questionnaire about factors that affect the development of communication skills, an interview form about factors that affect the development of students' communication skills, lesson plans, an observation form about student behavior, an interview form about opinions on teaching, and a communication skills scale. Findings revealed: 1) Principal factors influencing communication skills development include the learning process, environment, teachers, and students, respectively; 2) An instructional model grounded in the Theory of Goal Attainment materialized, comprising four core components: a) principles, b) objectives, c) learning process, and d) results; and 3) Post-implementation of the instructional model based on the Theory of Goal Attainment, students exhibited higher communication skill scores compared to pre-experimental levels, attaining statistical significance at the 0.05 level.

Standardized Nursing Language (SNL) Application in Diverse Nursing Practice and Documentation Settings

Background: Effective communication in healthcare is crucial, and Standardized Nursing Language (SNL) has emerged as a powerful tool to enhance nursing practice and documentation. However, disparities in SNL awareness and knowledge pose challenges to its effective implementation. This systematic review aims to synthesize research on SNL application in nursing practice across diverse settings, utilizing a comprehensive database search and predefined criteria for study selection. Methods: Comprehensive searches were conducted across databases like PubMed, Scopus, ProQuest, and Web of Science. This systematic review adhered to the updated guidelines provided by PRISMA 2020. Three independent reviewers assessed study eligibility based on predefined criteria, resolving discrepancies through discussion. A narrative synthesis approach categorized and thematically analyzed the data, focusing on SNL's impact in diverse healthcare settings. Data was retrieved after the studies were subjected to quality assessment and risk of biases. Results: The review included twelve studies spanning various healthcare systems and regions. While SNL demonstrated potential benefits, disparities in awareness, knowledge, and utilization were evident among participants. Challenges such as complex documentation processes and feasibility concerns were raised. Conclusion: SNL plays a pivotal role in enhancing nursing practice, improving documentation, and facilitating effective communication. Addressing education gaps and providing ongoing training opportunities are essential to overcome implementation challenges. Collaboration among healthcare institutions, educators, and regulatory bodies is crucial to fully leveraging SNL's benefits for better patient care and healthcare outcomes.

Analyzing the Role of Language and Religion in Culturally Competent Healthcare: An Interdisciplinary Perspective

Cultural competence in healthcare refers to the ability of providers and organizations to effectively deliver healthcare services that meet the social, cultural, and linguistic needs of patients. The current interdisciplinary approach aims to elucidate the critical roles of language and religion in healthcare, focusing on their impact on communication, patient satisfaction, health literacy, and cultural competence in healthcare delivery. Through meticulous analysis of academic databases, health organization reports, and religious institution publications, this literature review consolidates findings from few peer-reviewed articles published in English. Findings reveal that effective healthcare communication is significantly hampered by language barriers, leading to risks of misdiagnoses, improper treatments, and diminished patient satisfaction. The review highlights the indispensable roles of language and religious competence in healthcare, advocating for their integration into healthcare practice, education, and policy to enhance the quality and cultural competence of healthcare delivery for diverse patient populations. Future research should continue to explore and expand on these findings, contributing to the development of practical strategies and theoretical frameworks supporting culturally competent healthcare.

Enhancing effective healthcare communication in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand: Considerations for research, teaching, policy, and practice

ObjectiveIn this article we present a conceptual framework for enhancing effective healthcare communication in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. MethodsThrough an iterative, deliberative dialogue approach, we, as experts from a variety of health professions and academic disciplines, worked together to identify core values and considerations for healthcare communication across numerous health professions and disciplines and within research, teaching, policy, and practice contexts. ResultsThe framework developed includes five core values at its centre: equitable, inclusive, evidence-based, collaborative, reflective. Around this are concentric circles showing key elements of collaborators, modality, context, and purpose. Each of these is explored. ConclusionThis work may support benchmarking for healthcare providers, researchers, policymakers, and educators across a breadth of professions to help improve communication in clinical practice. The framework will also help to identify areas across disciplines that are shared and potentially idiosyncratic for various professions to promote interprofessional recognition, education, and collaboration. InnovationThis framework is designed to start conversations, to form the foundation of a dialogue about the priorities and key considerations for developing teaching curricula, professional development, and research programs related to healthcare communication, providing a set of values specifically for the unique contexts of Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. It can also be used to guide interdisciplinary healthcare professionals in advancing research, teaching, policy, and practice related to healthcare communication.

Enhancing Doctor-Patient Communication: An Exploratory Study

Effective communication is crucial in healthcare, yet patients often experience confusion and dissatisfaction due to the complexity and inaccessibility of medical information. This research addresses the critical need for clear and continuous communication between patients and healthcare providers, both within and beyond the clinical setting. Recognizing that the doctor-patient relationship is foundational to successful healthcare outcomes, this research works on DocTalk, a proposed digital platform designed to enhance this interaction. DocTalk can offer a secure, integrated communication system that not only facilitates patient understanding and involvement in their own care but also enables seamless coordination among multiple healthcare providers. This becomes particularly vital when patients are dealing with multiple medical professionals, where miscommunication can lead to inadequate or erroneous treatment. By leveraging the advancements in wireless technology and messaging, DocTalk aims to streamline the traditional methods like texting and phone calls, thus the communication process in healthcare can be simpler and securer. This paper analyses DocTalk’s potential to improve healthcare procedures and outcomes, focusing on its role in enhancing patient-doctor communication and its impact on various health outcomes using mobile databases. The research underscores the importance of accessible and effective communication in healthcare.

Health Communication Research Informs Inflammatory Bowel Disease Practice and Research: A Narrative Review.

In the absence of targeted empirical evidence on effective clinical communication in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), a broad overview of existing evidence on effective communication in healthcare and available recommendations for communication in telehealth is provided and mapped onto IBD research and practice. A narrative literature review was conducted using Pubmed and Scopus databases and snowballing literature search. Evidence-based relationship building strategies include communicating emotions, acknowledging and addressing patients' hesitancy, and ensuring continued support. A particular recommendation regarding telehealth interaction is to avoid long stretches of talk. Effective informational strategies include facilitating and supporting information exchange and considering patients' preferences in decision-making. In teleconsultations, clinicians should ask direct questions about patients' emotional state, clarify their understanding of patients' concerns and check patients' understanding, address at least one patient-reported outcome when discussing the recommended treatment, and shorten the consultation where possible. Strategies for maximizing effective clinical communication in the spoken communicative mode include using infographics and simple language, and assessing adherence at the beginning of the consultation. For teleconsultations, clinicians are advised to allow patients to explain the reason for their call at the beginning of the teleconsultation, probe additional concerns early and before ending the teleconsultation, and be mindful of technical issues such as voice delays. Use of question prompt lists, decision aids, micro-lessons, and communication training interventions for clinicians could be beneficial in IBD care. Further research into the implementation of such interventions as well as clinical communication concerns specific to IBD is warranted.

Effective healthcare communication with children and young people: a systematic review of barriers and facilitators

ObjectiveTo identify children and young people’s preferences for effective healthcare communication.DesignA systematic review of qualitative studies was conducted to identify evidence from children and young people on effective healthcare communication....

A general model of conversational dynamics and an example application in serious illness communication.

Conversation has been a primary means for the exchange of information since ancient times. Understanding patterns of information flow in conversations is a critical step in assessing and improving communication quality. In this paper, we describe COnversational DYnamics Model (CODYM) analysis, a novel approach for studying patterns of information flow in conversations. CODYMs are Markov Models that capture sequential dependencies in the lengths of speaker turns. The proposed method is automated and scalable, and preserves the privacy of the conversational participants. The primary function of CODYM analysis is to quantify and visualize patterns of information flow, concisely summarized over sequential turns from one or more conversations. Our approach is general and complements existing methods, providing a new tool for use in the analysis of any type of conversation. As an important first application, we demonstrate the model on transcribed conversations between palliative care clinicians and seriously ill patients. These conversations are dynamic and complex, taking place amidst heavy emotions, and include difficult topics such as end-of-life preferences and patient values. We use CODYMs to identify normative patterns of information flow in serious illness conversations, show how these normative patterns change over the course of the conversations, and show how they differ in conversations where the patient does or doesn’t audibly express anger or fear. Potential applications of CODYMs range from assessment and training of effective healthcare communication to comparing conversational dynamics across languages, cultures, and contexts with the prospect of identifying universal similarities and unique “fingerprints” of information flow.

Symptomatic Subjects: Bodies, Medicine, and Causation in the Literature of Late Medieval England by Julie Orlemanski

Reviewed by: Symptomatic Subjects: Bodies, Medicine, and Causation in the Literature of Late Medieval England by Julie Orlemanski Aylin Malcolm (bio) Julie Orlemanski, Symptomatic Subjects: Bodies, Medicine, and Causation in the Literature of Late Medieval England. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019, x + 333pp. $69.95 cloth. The events of 2020 revealed the importance of effective communication in healthcare and the potential for epidemics to inspire new narrative projects, concretizing decades of research on the intersections between literature and medicine. Though its publication anticipated these developments by several months, Julie Orlemanski's Symptomatic Subjects is an important contribution to such discussions and to the study of premodern medicine, a field generally dominated by historical methods. Orlemanski offers a sophisticated new perspective on the entanglements of literature and phisik—a Middle English term that includes both academic approaches to healing and more diffuse local practices—in late medieval England. Her deliberately anachronistic use of "symptom," which she defines as "a somatic disturbance that … provokes interpretation," speaks to the parallels between diagnosing a body and analyzing a text; both projects require one to interpret visible signs in the context of larger semiotic systems, a fact recognized by many medieval writers (p. 16). As her title suggests, the book also considers what Orlemanski calls "embodied subjectivity," characterized by the tension between physical susceptibility and the medieval emphasis on free will (p. 2). Orlemanski is particularly interested in individuals who reflect on their own bodies or pathologies, thereby addressing the "gap between one's materiality and one's experience, or between having and being a body" (p. 3). While Symptomatic Subjects will appeal most to those specializing in the late Middle Ages, its rigorous engagement with both literary criticism and the history of medicine is likely to interest a range of scholars. An evident strength of the book is its careful close readings, which address canonical texts (e.g., Geoffrey Chaucer's Knight's Tale) alongside others that are often overlooked (e.g., John Lydgate's "Dietary;" Robert Henryson's "Sum Practysis of Medecyne"). Many of these textual interpretations include studies of individual manuscripts; in particular, the Wound Man (a standard diagram of the various injuries that a physician might treat) in Wellcome Library MS 290 serves as an emblem of Orlemanski's project, embodying her interests in the relationships between particulars and general causes, as well as the tension between human agency and vulnerability. Each text or object is contextualized with generous references, such that the reader trained in a different field will likely require no further notes. Indeed, while the book has a clear overarching narrative, it often recapitulates essential information in multiple chapters; each chapter might therefore be read independently without additional context, a welcome feature in the age of digital downloads. [End Page 231] Structured as four parts of two chapters each, Symptomatic Subjects progresses from an overview of medieval medical knowledge to its effects on literary genres, plot, and voice, with a brief coda on the early modern afterlives of phisik. Orlemanski begins by surveying medicine in late medieval England, where the absence of formal medical institutions produced a diverse constellation of beliefs and practices. Chapter two delves more deeply into four aspects of phisik: the etiological schemata through which physicians ascribed medical conditions to causes, the decentralized and heterogeneous character of medical authority, the tendency for physicians to read bodies as signs with identifiable meanings, and the relationships between content and layout in medical manuscripts. Both chapters offer not only useful information about medical practices, but also perceptive analyses of medical writing, as Orlemanski applies her considerable critical skills to texts not often read as literature. The next two chapters examine satire, which often criticized the obscure jargon and earthly materialism of medical texts, and exempla, or short anecdotes illustrating moral principles, a very common narrative form during the late Middle Ages. The fourth chapter's comparisons between exemplary narratives and medical case studies are especially enlightening, providing clear evidence of the fluid relationship between medieval literature and medicine, and thus of the importance of Orlemanski's work. Central to this chapter is Orlemanski's notion of the "etiological imagination," or the creative process of envisioning causation with...

Self-perceived risk for diabetes among non-diabetic adolescents with overweight/obesity: Findings from NHANES

AimsThe prevalence of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus among adolescents in the United States continues to rise, following the trajectory of the obesity epidemic which posits not only a substantial health burden to our society, but also a significant threat to the wellbeing of America’s youth. While a number of studies have explored the perception of the risk for developing diabetes in the adult population in the United States, this data is minimal for the adolescent population. In this study, we examined the self-perceived risk of diabetes among adolescents with overweight/obesity. MethodsCross-sectional study of 808 non-diabetic U.S. adolescents overweight or obese, ages 12–19, who completed a physical exam and in-home interview during the 2011–2014 National Heath and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES). ResultsOf adolescents with obesity, African Americans (aOR 0.27, 95% CI: 0.15, 0.51) and Hispanic Americans (aOR 0.50, 95% CI: 0.28, 0.90) were significantly less likely to perceive themselves as being at risk for developing diabetes/prediabetes compared to Non-Hispanic Whites. Additionally, individuals with overweight (aOR 13.1, 95% CI: 4.54, 37.5) and obesity (aOR 3.40, 95% CI: 1.71, 6.74) who had been informed by their physician that they were at risk for diabetes, were significantly more likely to perceive themselves to be at risk for diabetes. ConclusionsSignificant racial differences exist in the self-perceived risk for diabetes among U.S. adolescents with overweight and obesity. Further investigation focused on preventing the development of diabetes among at-risk adolescents who do not comprehend their risk, i.e. through more effective healthcare communication, is warranted.

Innovative Communication Learning: Combining TED Talks and Reflective Writing for Nursing Students.

As educational programs compete with online and open courseware, TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) Talks provide meaningful complementary content that can be easily integrated into curricula. Evaluate an innovative approach to the standard lecture by combining media mixture with reflective writing. Undergraduate nursing students were asked to view a TED Talk and write a brief narrative reflection as part of their preparation for a communication class. The video and reflective writing assignment were completed by 23/25 (92%) of students. Qualitative analysis of the reflective writing identified three primary themes: Communication as a Foundational Competency, Importance of Empathy, and Professional Role Development. This illustrative talk and narrative exercise provided an interactive learning experience for novice nurses that served as a compelling means to critically reflect on effective health-care communication skills, prior to entry into practice.

Nursing Communication as a Tool for Patient Satisfaction. A Single Hospital Survey

Background: Communication is an essential tool for health promotion. Effective healthcare communication has great therapeutic value. Objective: The aim of the study is to assess the degree of patient satisfaction related to nursing communication in the various stages of hospital stay. Methods: Patients admitted to General University Hospital in medical and surgical department were subjected to this survey using a questionnaire, structured in four sections (acceptance, hospital stay, discharge, pain and new drugs management). Chi-square and multivariate logistic regression models were used to test the association between the outcome of interest defined as the satisfaction of nursing communication and the independent variables. Results: One thousand three hundred seventy questionnaires were administered. In acceptance, among patients satisfied with nursing skills related to explaining the department's functioning, most were satisfied with nursing communication (972 vs 87 p <0.005). Also during the hospital stay, among patients satisfied with nursing Skills and Manner relating to communication most were significantly satisfied with the nursing communication (849 vs 74 p <0.005 and 987 vs 55 p <0.001). At the discharge, the number of patients satisfied with nursing communication was greater among patients who considered the length of hospital stay adequate (1020 vs 65 p <0.001). Data are confirmed by the multiple logistic regression analysis. Conclusion: Our study shows how nursing communication is the key to establishing a good therapeutic care relationship and how it can be associated with patient satisfaction in various phases of hospital stay.

Communication Under Pressure: A Quasi-Experimental Study to Assess the Impact of a Structured Curriculum on Skilled Communication to Promote a Healthy Work Environment.

Effective communication in health care is a mainstay of patient safety and staff perception of a healthy work environment. A quasi-experimental study was conducted to assess the impact of a course on staff perceptions of communication. A Wilcoxon signed-ranks test indicated a statistically significant difference between pre and post scores for the self-assessment component of the Heathy Work Environment Instrument (p = .0005); coworker assessments revealed borderline statistical significance (p = .056).

Contemporary views of teaching and learning healthcare communication in clinical practice

Along with skilled psychomotor or procedural skills, skilled communication is an essential component of effective healthcare delivery. Developing effective healthcare communication does not occur by chance and focused education can have positive impacts on health professionals’ communication behaviour and also patient outcomes. As such there are a range of reported initiatives for teaching and learning skilled healthcare communication in both classroom and workplace settings. There is a long history of teaching communication in medicine and nursing, however in recent times, the importance of patient and team communication has been recognised and emphasised in the training of all health disciplines. Through drawing on research and examples from across the health professions, we can explore contemporary views of teaching and learning healthcare communication with a specific focus on teaching this element of practice in the clinical setting. Connections and implications for the ultrasound teaching and learning context will be emphasised and discussed.

Do Objective Measures of Communication Predict Clinical Performance? – Application in Acute Care Trauma Simulation

Effective communication in healthcare is critical for effective patient care. This study explored communication in an acute care team simulation where medical students were asked to perform as the physician in charge to manage pre-and post-operative patients. Students’ speech was analyzed to determine differences according to communication receiver (i.e., student to nurse, student to patient). Statistical analyses revealed that speech ratio, speech intensity, and number of questions students asked to the nurse or patient were significantly different between communication receivers ( p<0.05). Furthermore, communications initiated by student to nurse contributed 34% of the total time, and 31% from student to patient. Lastly, students spoke 3% higher volume to patient than to nurse, 20% more questions were asked to nurse than to patient. Findings indicated an overall positive relationship between measured audio variables and performance.

Person-centred care and HIV: challenges and solutions

Person-centred consultations (PCCs) are fundamental to effective healthcare communication, and its use is embedded within key clinical guidance. There are three aspects to PCC: use of the best available research...

Exploratory Application of Augmented Reality/Mixed Reality Devices for Acute Care Procedure Training.

IntroductionAugmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and virtual reality devices are enabling technologies that may facilitate effective communication in healthcare between those with information and knowledge (clinician/specialist; expert; educator) and those seeking understanding and insight (patient/family; non-expert; learner). Investigators initiated an exploratory program to enable the study of AR/MR use-cases in acute care clinical and instructional settings.MethodsAcademic clinician educators, computer scientists, and diagnostic imaging specialists conducted a proof-of-concept project to 1) implement a core holoimaging pipeline infrastructure and open-access repository at the study institution, and 2) use novel AR/MR techniques on off-the-shelf devices with holoimages generated by the infrastructure to demonstrate their potential role in the instructive communication of complex medical information.ResultsThe study team successfully developed a medical holoimaging infrastructure methodology to identify, retrieve, and manipulate real patients’ de-identified computed tomography and magnetic resonance imagesets for rendering, packaging, transfer, and display of modular holoimages onto AR/MR headset devices and connected displays. Holoimages containing key segmentations of cervical and thoracic anatomic structures and pathology were overlaid and registered onto physical task trainers for simulation-based “blind insertion” invasive procedural training. During the session, learners experienced and used task-relevant anatomic holoimages for central venous catheter and tube thoracostomy insertion training with enhanced visual cues and haptic feedback. Direct instructor access into the learner’s AR/MR headset view of the task trainer was achieved for visual-axis interactive instructional guidance.ConclusionInvestigators implemented a core holoimaging pipeline infrastructure and modular open-access repository to generate and enable access to modular holoimages during exploratory pilot stage applications for invasive procedure training that featured innovative AR/MR techniques on off-the-shelf headset devices.

Cultivating Effective Communication in Healthcare: The Case of Q&A Websites

Question-and-answer (Q&A) websites in health domains have become virtual places where information and advice can be sought and obtained. Such virtual encounters with different linguistic communities have increasingly become the norm for young people who rarely undergo regular medical examinations. For this category of people, the Internet is the electronic gateway to confidential advice and information on health issues. In this regard, Q&A websites, such as Kinsey Confidential, Go Ask Alice! , and The Teenage Health Freak offer a unique and novel vantage point from which to survey both how young people think and talk about their own health, and how health professionals engage in new modes of communication to provide health advice and information. In order to scrutinize adolescents and health professionals’ communicative behavior, this study not only has the potential to provide linguistic data for the expanding field of research in computer-mediated communication (CMC), but it could also prove meaningful to health professionals themselves and policymakers. It adopts a corpus-based approach to discourse analysis to provide quantitative evidence of the occurrence of qualitative patterns of discourse and language use in Kinsey Confidential, Go Ask Alice! and The Teenage Health Freak corpora, particularly in Q&A posts on health issues such as birth control and pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, and gender and sexual orientation. Findings show how unfamiliar young people still are with regards to sexual health. While some misconceptions and prejudices can be ascribed to popular myths and rumors, much of this lack of knowledge is due to a scarcity of successful educational interventions and policy initiatives. For this reason, investigating how healthcare providers interact with adolescents online can lead us to new ways of thinking about successful relationships between patients and healthcare providers, and helps us prepare future educational models that incorporate online communication and consider how young people think about and participate in these language communities.

How can we contribute more to implementation of effective Healthcare Communication? Brief EACH Report by Evelyn van Weel, the President

How can we contribute more to implementation of effective Healthcare Communication? Brief EACH Report by Evelyn van Weel, the President

Hispanics and effective health care communication in the United States of America: a corpus-based analysis

Health care reform and immigration reform are heated subjects in the United States of America. The main research question of this paper links the two by analyzing the effectiveness of government communication about the Affordable Care Act (ACA) towards Hispanics. The expansion of health insurance does not necessarily ensure access to care for all members of this minority group. Apart from questions of eligibility, immigrants face other obstacles, such as language, cultural differences, and perceptions about health care. These realities should be taken into consideration when communicating with Latinos, but was this the case for ACA? This paper presents the results of a corpus-based research of six government sources and six sources from non-profit organizations on ACA. An analysis of effective communication using 11 parameters was performed on this corpus and showed that undeniable communicative flaws, together with the too frequent lack of linguistic accuracy in Spanish, point out the need for experts when it comes to communicate publically with ethnic minorities.