Practical Nursing: Patient Communication

Patient education allows patients to play a bigger role in their own care. It also aligns with patient- and family-centered care. To be effective, patient education needs to be more than instructions and information. Teachers and health care providers need to be able to assess patient needs and communicate clearly.

Therapeutic communication is a type of professional communication used by nurses with patients and defined as, “The purposeful, interpersonal information-transmitting process through words and behaviors based on both parties’ knowledge, attitudes, and skills, which leads to patient understanding and participation."

Patient-centred communication means engaging with patients so as to create a mutual understanding about how the physician’s thoughts and the proposed care meet the patient’s expectations, interests and needs from their individual perspectives.

Hashim, M.J. (2017). Patient-Centered Communication: Basic Skills. American Family Physician, 95(1):29-34.