How Can Nurses Communicate Effectively To Patients?

Practice Nurse Debbie shares her tips on communicating effectively to patients, from asking the right questions to using language they will understand.

Hello, my name is Debbie, and I'm a Practice Nurse in London. Today I'm going to be talking about how Practice Nurses can communicate effectively with their patients.

Now, as I probably mentioned many times before, the pressure in GP-land is crazy. And as a Practice Nurse, as much as the pressure is, information must be communicated with clarity and with efficiency. In order for communication to be effective, it needs to be received by the patient, and understood by the patient.

Slow It Down

Now, effective communication is something that as students we've written about. As nurses, it's literally the crux of nursing. It's literally everything. It's something that, if patients are not receiving information clearly, they can't make an informed decision, because they've not been given the full information that they need.

So how are we able to do this as nurses, Practice Nurses especially, because of the timeframe that we are given with each patient?

I think number one, and this is a big one for me, because it's so natural for me to speak so fast. This is something that has been picked up by my mentor. When I started off in practice nursing doing smear tests, I would give the information, and then at the end my mentor would say, "Debbie, slow it down." And in my head, I'm thinking, "I've literally said this so slowly."

But you wouldn't really know unless someone else told you, especially if the person's first language is not English. Speaking very fast can really ruin effective communication, because patients, sometimes they're just nodding, you wouldn't realize that they don't understand everything that you're saying.

So, speaking slowly and clearly, whether English is their first language or not, it's always important to speak slowly. So, some people who have hearing aids, and so many other conditions that can just impair hearing. And so, it's important to speak slowly and clearly.

Make Sure Patients Understand You

Another thing is asking patients whether what you've said is understood. So, as I'm going along, I will just say, "Does that make sense?" Or even asking patients what do they understand of what you have said? Asking them to repeat the information just to make sure that they understand.

Effective communication is something that as students we've written about. As nurses, it's literally the crux of nursing. It's literally everything. It's something that, if patients are not receiving information clearly, they can't make an informed decision.

Something that I do a lot, especially with my elderly patients, is write the information down, whether it's their appointment time, whether it's the medication that they need to pick up, whether it's reminding them which pharmacy they need to go to, I just write the information down. So even if they don't understand it, they can always show the paper to a family member and they're able to help them with that. So that's something that I'm really big on, is just writing information down on a piece of paper.

Remember That You’ve Also Been A Patient

Another thing which is very helpful is doing research prior to when the patient comes. I think a lot of the times, patients just want to be able to know, and when I say patients are so interesting, because I'm a patient too, I'm a patient to a GP practice, and I want to know that my healthcare provider understands my situation, and it's not just generic about things, that it's holistic.

It's focused on me, not just because, for example, I have headaches, but understanding that the reason I have headaches is because of X, Y, and Z. And so, you're dealing with the whole situation, as opposed to just the generic situation.

So, what I tend to do is before a patient comes in, I'll quickly just go through their notes, go through anything recent, or if we've not seen them in a long time. And that way when you are speaking to them you are able to speak with a lot more compassion and empathy.

There's sometimes where, for example, B12 injections are usually given every three-months. And there are patients who I've not seen them in about six-months, or so. There was a patient recently who I hadn't seen in about a year, and it was like, "What's happened?" But looking through their notes, I can see that they've had quite a tough time recently.

And that way when I'm communicating, I'm able to communicate with empathy, I'm able to communicate in a way that will show that I understand what they have been through. And so, it's very important to do your research on that patient specifically and see what it is that they have been through throughout the year, or in the last few months, and communicate to them according to that.

Use Language Patients Will Understand

And lastly, this is something that's very important, it's medical jargon. Being able to use simple terms, simple words that patients are able to understand. There are certain terminologies that, even me as a Healthcare Professional, I'm still lost sometimes.

How much more a layman who doesn't understand some of the medical terms that we use, the medical abbreviations that we use. When we're typing in our documentation, we use BT for blood tests, and BD for twice-a-day, and things like that. It's not always understood by everybody, and that's okay.

But when we're speaking to our patients, it's important that we understand that we need to use terms that they are able to understand in order for communication to be effective. There's no point in sending the patient away, with a medication, saying, "Take it BD", and just giving them all these terms that they're not going to understand, because what's going to happen is it's a ripple effect.

They won't understand, they won't take the medication, they'll come back to you saying they haven't taken the medication, and the cycle just repeats. So, it's a case of making sure that we are not using terms that patients are not familiar with, and ensuring that when we have finished speaking, and giving our monologue on what we think a patient should do, is making sure that this decision, or the conversation, is a mutual conversation.

Give Them Time To Communicate Back To You

As we are communicating, they are also being given an opportunity to communicate back to us and giving them space for questions where they can ask and just clarify what it is that they need to do. I think this would save so much time, and so much appointment times.

There are so many times where patients have come back to me with simple things. And it's like, they just saw the doctor recently, and I'll explain it all again. And they're like, "Thank you so much, "because I did not understand "when the doctor said it to me the other day." And I'm just like, "That's fine."

It's just taking that time out to really explain it. And I think that will really help patients from having to come to the practice over and over again simply because they've just misunderstood certain information.

So, I hope this helps. As Healthcare Professionals, let's just remember that we also are patients, we are someone's patient, we are registered to a GP, hopefully, and we would also like information to be delivered to us in a certain way.

So, let's afford our patients that opportunity also.

I hope this helps.