Active Listening In Nursing

Communication, in nursing, is a multifaceted concept that involves family members, patients, doctors, and health care team. Communication is defining as a process that involves the encoding, formulating a message for transmission and decoding, interpreting the meaning of messages being sent and received by a source and receiver, respectively (D'Amico & Barbarito, 2012). The communication process consists of various activities such as interacting, questioning, attending, listening, paraphrasing, reflecting, speaking, gathering, summarizing, and leading (D'Amico & Barbarito, 2012). Listening is the basic part of the communication process and is the most important interaction skill. Active listening is a method in which the receiver or listener
This affects the nurse-patients’ communication and relationship reducing it to a lack of interaction and understanding, in turn nurses overlook significant information about many patients and communication is restrict and limited to only answering questions, caregiving and medications. Active listening on the other hand help the nurse pay close, attentive and gentle, caring, understanding to what the patient has said or implied. When nurses actively listen to their patient, they listen to the whole person and are able to reflect on the patient’s feelings and provide them with sympathetic and caring understanding. By doing so they help the patients feel heard, and understood. When patients feel they are being heard not judge, interrupt, criticize or look down, they become less anxious and worry and more open to their nurses. Active listeners nurses are able to establish stronger, deeper, and a healthy nurse- patient relationship (D'Amico & Barbarito, 2012). Communicating in this way helps in the healing
When a patient is under stress or perhaps feeling down, distress and vulnerable they are more likely to close off, keeping their inner feelings and thoughts locked within, and in turn refused to cooperate with their medications, the nurses, doctors and become hard to deal with. According to Klagsburn (2012) A sick person must adapt to the changes occurring in their body, as well as the new challenges that arise during diagnosis and treatment. Additionally, that patient must also find way and coping mechanisms to deal with the unpredictable and vulnerability that illness evokes. Being an active listener to that patient reassure her or him that she or he is not along in that he or she has someone who is willing to actively listen to their inner’s experience. Simply being next to the patients to listen to what patients think and feel has a beneficial effect on their physical healing and well-being. “The basics for good communication are simple to learn, do not take up a lot of time, and can significantly change the quality of the patient's experience as well as that of the nurse by decreasing the stress level on both parties” (Klagsburn,