Effective communication is a vital skill for all medical professionals. The skill is indispensable for providing high-quality care and ensuring that patients’ experience is positive (1). Furthermore, research has shown the significance of effective communication for improved health outcomes (2). It can be easily forgotten that nurse-patient communication is not only verbal but also nonverbal. Nonetheless, more than half of communication consists of nonverbal behavior and allows patients to recognize many nonverbal cues, signaling, for instance, empathy or its absence (3). Consequently, this type of communication is indispensable for effective patient-nurse interactions.
Nurses’ body language and paralanguage should not contradict their words but complement and accentuate them. Appropriate nonverbal signals such as moderate eye contact or a suitable tone of voice can increase patients’ trust and overall experience from a visit (4). A warn-appropriate smile can corroborate nurses’ positive intentions. Active listening expressed by facing the patient and maintaining eye contact supports the message that nurses care about their well-being. Nonverbal communication is a large source of clues for patients to interpret a nurse’s emotional and physical state, attitude, intentions, and many other factors (5). If verbal and nonverbal cues do not match, the patient might perceive insincerity, resulting in distrust, which is detrimental to nurse-patient relationships (6). Dishonesty and falsehood that surge from nonalignment of verbal and nonverbal communication is undesirable in clinical practice.
Nonverbal cues, such as gestures, facial expressions, voice, space, posture, and inconsistencies shape nurse-patient relationships. Nonverbal communication constitutes a sizable portion of communication and serves as a reservoir for additional information gathered primarily unconsciously. It is of utter significance for building a trusting rapport that nonverbal cues and nurses’ verbal communication transmit the same message. In the opposite case, a sense of dishonesty might emerge as nonverbal cues eclipse words.
References
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- McFarland D, Johnson M, Holcombe R. Predictors of satisfaction with doctor and nurse communication: a national study. Health Communication. 2016;32(10):1217-1224.
- Lorié Á, Reinero A, Phillips M, Zhang, L, Riess, H. Culture and nonverbal expressions of empathy in clinical settings: a systematic review. Patient Education and Counselin. 2017;100(3):411–424.
- Benbenishty J S, Hannink, J R. Non-verbal communication to restore patient–provider trust. Intensive Care Med. 2015;41:1359–1360.
- James S, Desborough J, McInnes S, Halcomb E J. Nonverbal communication between registered nurses and patients during chronic disease management consultations: observations from general practice. Journal of Clinical Nursing. 2020:1–10.
- Marono A, Clarke D, Navarro J, Keatley D A. A Behaviour sequence analysis of nonverbal communication and deceit in different personality clusters. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law. 2017:1–15.