Underlying Importance of Communication in Healthcare - Essay Example

Section/# The Underlying Importance of Communication in Healthcare Communication is essential in every interactionbecause it is through this process that an individual makes clear his/her thoughts and ideas. In health and social care, effective communication is necessary because there are certain conditions that greatly require the skill. For instance, for health caregivers, they should not just be able to be patient in making the patients understand why they need to take in their medicines, rest at appointed periods of the day or do some exercise. They can do this by explanation but the fact is that, when one deals with a person who is in pain, they can easily get irritated and would refuse to listen and cooperate with the caregiver. Therefore, it has been suggested that people working in health and social care environments should be able to organize a conversation for effective communication. When a speaker is organized, there would be a smooth flow of communication and the result would be an understanding between the people communicating. The health care provider must understand the conversation cycle and look for other means the patient may be communicating such as the use of non-verbal communication. Therefore, the worker should also be able to interpret and understand non-verbal communication. In addition, the caregiver should also understand cultural differences in order to understand what is being communicated by the patient and s/he would also know how to tell things to the patient. Asking questions is another skill that health and social care providers must be proficient in because they are able to bring out more necessary information about their clients through questioning. Lastly, they should also have listening skills, understanding what is said between the lines and not just grasping meanings from spoken words. There are indeed many facets of communication and these should be mastered for effective communication. As a function of analyzing the different means whereby communication takes place, and under what contexts/within which theories, this analysis will seek to briefly elaborate on the main categorizations of applicable theory and draw a level of inference upon the way in which models of communication can ultimately help in increasing the level and excellence of healthcare, as well as social care, to the end patient. Although it is not specifically the intent of this brief research to discuss the level to which communications within healthcare and social care can affect each and every shareholder, it is worth mentioning, and will be briefly discussed, the level to which communications ultimately leads to a clearer and more nuanced approach to healthcare and social care even within the healthcare community and the many shareholders this ultimately represents. Although the term communications encompasses a great many mechanisms, theories, and constructs, the term itself, with relation to healthcare and social care can be simply defined as “the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve the quality of healthcare and social care provision” (BTEC 2010, p. 3). As such, communication within healthcare takes on a variety of forms in order to achieve a desired result. Perhaps the most useful mechanism of the way that health promotion takes place is by engaging the individual with the holistic nature of health. In this way, the overly used cliche – an ounce of cure is worth a pound of prevention comes into clear focus. It is this author’s belief that the holistic view of health is the most key and integral concept due to the fact that such an approach necessarily encompasses the other approaches – to include: the participatory nature of health, key/individual factors in promoting health, implementation of strategy to build health, and tallying key strengths/weaknesses to bolster overall health. In this way, promotion of the key concept of the holistic nature of health is a type of umbrella term that necessarily works to capture all of the components involved (Novelli 2008 p.98). According to Dahlgren’s Rainbow Model, the very core and/or heart of healthcare is concentric around the age, sex, and hereditary factors of the individual in question. Obviously, this concept helps to put the focus directly within the scope of the most salient medical factors that any layperson can readily determine intimately affect overall health. This is of course mentioned due to the fact that such factors as the ones which have been listed play a primary and functionally actionable part in the way that the healthcare professional will seek to interact and communicate with the patient. Similarly, the next level of factors which affect the individual include social and community factors. As such, the environment that the individual patient resides and the means of social interaction that take place within that environment are the second most important facet of communication within the healthcare system according to Dahlgren’s model. The third layer refers to the living and working conditions as they relate to the overall health of the person in question. These environmental factors, both at home and at work, have a severe and profound impact on the ways in which a person’s health is affected over time. Lastly, Dahlgren considers the general socioeconomic and environmental conditions that help to define the health of the individual. It is important to note that although each of these are of importance, they nonetheless each have a profound and lasting effect on the way that health is achieved, lost, and managed. Each of these theories ultimately represents ways in which the healthcare or social care practitioner can seek to become better at performing their job and within the context of key interventions via a framework of communication. As a function of this, three theories that should be discussed are that of the means by which communication in healthcare or social care applications ascribes to the social cognitive theory, the theory of reasoned action, and the theory of planned behavior. As with any theory, the three that will herein be presented each represent their own unique strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities as well as providing specific application for objective use. In this way, the analysis will seek to provide a level of discussion on these topics as well as merely expounding upon the theories themselves as they ultimately relate back to the ways in which the healthcare or social care practitioner will seek to integrate with the patient and with their fellow colleagues utilizing communications within the following theoretical framework. The first theory that will be discussed is that of the social cognitive theory. This theory is one which espouses the belief that portions of an individual’s knowledge can ultimately be traced back to their ability to observe and learn from others. Naturally, such a theory in and of itself is not complex. It is common to observe many situations within the healthcare or social care setting as well as others in which learning by observing is common and even encouraged. However, this particular theory is perhaps greatest of all that will herein be discussed due to the fact that many a new nurse or doctor has condensed many years of medical training, memorization, and practice into the knowledge that can be extracted from observing a veteran perform in a way that they otherwise would not. Naturally, even though the human mind is tempted to believe that the social cognitive theory only represents situations in which learning is imparted in a positive way, this can also take place in a negative way as a means of interacting with an individual and impressing upon them that the way that they have seen something done is necessarily the incorrect way. Needless to say, the communications approach ties in strongly with this theory due to the fact that in order for a free flow of information to take place between instructor and shadower, there must be a high level of understanding of the complimentary roles in which communications within healthcare or social care must play. Such an approach is therefore perfectly suited to application within seeking to promote health activities, espouse mission development, program evaluation, and setting goals within the effected community which employs such a tactic. Such a theory has regularly been utilized, and to an astonishing level of success, within situations pertaining to public health education. The secondary theory which will herein be analyzed is that of the theory of reasoned action. Much akin to the common sense approach that the social cognitive theory evoked, the theory of reasoned action is one which predicts human behavioral action based upon attitude and prior behavior mechanisms. In short, past actions work towards developing a future model of behavior. This approach’s greatest strength is of course its ability to help predict future action and the means by which behavior has a verifiable and measurable impact upon the way in which decisions and choices are made, oftentimes outside of the bounds of rationality. Likewise, as with the first theory that has been discussed, communication plays an integral and indispensible role within this theory as well. Although at first glance it may not appear as if the theory of reasoned action can be understood from a communicational standpoint, the fact of the matter is that since such an approach hinges upon the cognition and understanding of key human behavior, this is also a facet of communications theory that should be well understood and exercised as a means of better providing a high quality of care to the end patient. However, the most blatant drawback to such an approach is the fact that it cannot adequately predict the unknown and therefore falls short in many instances. As such, attitude, behavioral norms, and subjective intention are the three main determinants that guide the theory of reasoned action. The theory itself has been put into place as a means of drawing inference on human behavior with a very wide range of subject matter. Similarly, although the theory itself present an array of strengths, the greatest strength that it has within the field of medical application is likely with regards to goal setting and mission development due to the fact that it is the one of the three that have been selected that place such a profound level of importance upon the way in which human behavior and attitude ultimately effect a given outcome. Additionally, this analysis will consider the theory of planned behavior. The theory of planned behavior, with regards to the communications in the application of healthcare or social care, can ultimately be defined as a type of link between attitude and behavior. As the other two theories which have been discussed previously evidenced, they have both sought to explain the theoretical approaches based exclusively either upon attitude or behavior. However, such a combined approach helps to lend a level of analysis into key areas of human action, learning, and prediction that the other two do not. The ultimate strength of such a combination approach has been noted by a number of researchers that point to this particular theory as being the one that displays the highest degree of predictive quality. As a result of this inherent strength, it has and continues to be applied to the areas of health promotion, mission development, goal and objective setting and a litany of other tangential areas that touch upon the ways in which people, attitudes, ideas, behavior, and healthcare or social care provision takes place across the spectrum. Although it does display quite an array of strengths, the theory does have the limitation of oftentimes overlooking certain powerful emotional variables such as but not limited to: fear, anger, and general influences of mood. The theory itself has been extensively utilized within the field of environmental psychology as a means of drawing inference upon situations that the other theories necessarily fall short on. In this way, this final theory of healthcare or social care provision and communication helps to emphasize the single most important aspect of communication with the realm of healthcare; i.e. that of the ability to recognize and draw inference upon key behavioral facets of all parties involved. Whereas this may not be traditionally understood as a form of communication, it is the belief of this author that all such spoken or unspoken forms of understanding that pass between shareholders can actively be counted as a form of communication. As a function of such a broad theory of what communication ultimately entails, the reader/researcher should be able to infer that communication cannot succinctly and/or conveniently be shelved into an easy to understand definition. Due to the fact that so many verbal, nonverbal, professional, personal, and emotional/non emotional components go into such a definition, it becomes clear the full range, depth and complexity that such a nuanced construct operates within. In short, the theories that have thus far been discussed do not present an exhaustive or complete discussion of the range of theories that exist within the field of health promotion; nor do they represent and exhaustive study upon the full range and breadth to which each of these can ultimately be utilized. Rather, the theories that have briefly been listed help to engage the reader with the understanding that each of these represents a unique way in which the practitioner can utilize certain theories within certain situations as a means of drawing inference on key issues and problems that may exist. By seeking to fit the correct theory, or even set of theories, to the correct usage, the process of healthcare or social care promotion and engagement is ultimately furthered. As a means of the analysis that has been conduced, the reader is able to infer that communication falls far outside of the narrow bounds that it is defined as within society. As a function of this broad scope and various means by which a healthcare professional can utilize communication to affect a positive change in the level of care that a patient receives, the reader/researcher can come to fully appreciate the multitude of different ways in which positive types of communication can play a powerful and symbiotic relationship with healthcare provision within the field. Moreover, as the science and technology of healthcare and to a lesser extent social care continue to grow at a seemingly endless and dizzying pace, one fairly, albeit not perfectly, constant aspect of the field is the fact that the communication paradigms that have been thus far analyzed have remained more or less static. As a function of this, the reader/researcher can appreciate the fact that tried and proven methods of patient interaction and the means by which the healthcare professional integrates his/her needs with the patient can be solidly and concretely practiced as well as understood. In such a way, the true nature and scope that communications plays with regards to the administration and further development of healthcare encompasses the full gamut of applications that have herein been discussed. Reference Kilpatrick, K 2013, 'Understanding acute care nurse practitioner communication and decision-making in healthcare teams', Journal Of Clinical Nursing, 22, 1/2, pp. 168-179, CINAHL Plus with Full Text, EBSCOhost, viewed 19 February 2013. Read More