As a nurse practitioner, maintaining therapeutic communications with your patients is a very important aspect of achieving your goal. In some cases, communication problems may occur within the process of building a therapeutic relationship with a patient, which may determine the quality of care the nurse will give. To build a therapeutic relationship with your client, one also needs to be aware of themselves to be able to handle patients who have complex healthcare needs.
A therapeutic nurse is responsible for the patient’s physical, spiritual, and emotional needs in which you will use your knowledge and skills to tell when the patient requires each. By providing these needs, the patient will gain your trust and this will lead them to be open and assume they are equal partners ending up achieving wellness (Gutiérrez-Puertas et al., 2020). The reason why many nurses advocate for a therapeutic relationship and communication is that this procedure is known to be productive and is very vital in the recovery process.
Once trust is built between the patient and the care provider, one can understand the patients’ point of view, motives, and feelings. This equips the physician with a total understanding of the patient, hence, making it easier for treatment procedures. The nurse is also able to use the most effective strategies when handling the current issue. When one creates a good communication rapport with the client, the administration of service provided becomes easy and error-free. As much as we talk about the outcomes that are related to the positive therapeutic relationship, other outcomes are associated with a negative clinician-patient relationship. They include feeling dehumanized and increased psychological distress. Achieving therapeutic relationships and communication can be a challenging process that requires patience. When therapeutic communication is effective, it has positive effects to improved adherence to treatment, hence, increased rate in the healing process.
Reference
Gutiérrez-Puertas, L., Márquez-Hernández, V. V., Gutiérrez-Puertas, V., Granados-Gámez, G., & Aguilera-Manrique, G. (2020). Educational interventions for nursing students to develop communication skills with patients: A systematic review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(7), 2241. Web.