Building Foundations in Communication
To provide learners with initial exposure to foundations in health communication, we examined other resources. The main reference related to communication was discipline specific. Communication for the Nursing Professional – 1st Canadian Edition, 2020, is an open education resource with 3 chapters on foundational communication including interactive questions and videos. Click here to access the e-book. See key takeaways from each chapter for a high level overview.
Chapter One: Key Takeaways
- Communication refers to the sharing of information, ideas, and feelings, and is typically intended to foster mutual understanding.
- Communication involves many forms including verbal, non-verbal and written.
- Professional communication is important to your development as a health and social care provider.
- Three models of communication: The Transmission, Interaction, and Transactions Models.
- Trauma-informed, relational inquiry, and anti-racist approaches are common.
Chapter Two: Key Takeaways
- Therapeutic communication is the foundation of the nurse-client relationship.
- Therapeutic communication is one of four standards to “establish, maintain, re-establish and terminate the nurse-client relationship” as per the College of Nurses of Ontario.
- Privacy and confidentiality are important components of the client interview.
- Consider the client interview thoughtfully and use a combination of communication strategies.
- It is important to attend to the client’s developmental stage and their state of mind.
Chapter Three: Key Takeaways
- Interprofessional communication occurs between members of various professions and can also include the client/family.
- Interprofessional communication is a fundamental component of interprofessional collaboration and optimizing client outcomes.
- Several factors influence interprofessional communication, including the physical environment, context, and communication styles.
- Respectful interprofessional communication and interaction is essential to safe and effective work environments, including healthcare settings.
- ISBAR is a commonly used tool that can facilitate effective communication with other healthcare professionals.
- Awareness of one’s personal communication styles and values helps facilitate interprofessional communication.
Although this textbook is written with the discipline of nursing in mind by nursing educators, nearly all of the content included in the chapters are beneficial in preparing all health and social care students with foundations in communication when working and caring for others. In addition, it is a great learner preparation tool prior to playing the virtual gaming simulation included in Chapter 3 of this book.
The Global Interprofessional Therapeutic Communication Scale©-Interactive text and resources created in this project bring an interdisciplinary lens and interprofessional perspective for client-patient-provider communication. This interactive, open access textbook will integrate resources that are not presently housed on a platform or in a format for open access. This provides a higher level learning option that will allow learners flexible use and sustainable access. It is available to all health and social care professional learners and practitioners and incorporates an opportunity for assessment of therapeutic communication for both formative and summative evaluation and improvement. The GITCS© assessment tool can be done by faculty, peers, or self-reflection and incorporated into the learning with this text. The next section will describe the scale and how to use it.
Attribution Statement
Key takeaway tables adapted from:
Introduction to Communication in Nursing by Edited by Jennifer Lapum; Oona St-Amant; Michelle Hughes; and Joy Garmaise-Yee is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
