The Significance Of Communication And Interpersonal Skills In A Healthcare Profession

As humans, there is the necessity to interact with one another during our experiences in life, we come across situations whereby we try to relay messages the way they needed to be relayed. These interactions require adequate communication and interpersonal skills which may not be properly developed. They are both very important quality when interacting with one another. To develop these skills, we need to be aware the need to reflect on them and developed them, accept our weaknesses, the better the interactions and helps to deal better with any shortcomings and work towards it, more. People with these skills can work well with others and as a team, improve in the most area in life, professionally, socially and personally. This essay focuses on the benefits of the effectiveness of communication and interpersonal skills, definitions, the importance of such skills and the factors that can affect them to health care professionals. To be able to work as a healthcare profession, communication and interpersonal skills play a very vital role.

Effective healthcare is about providing for the explicit and implicit health needs of people. This requires that healthcare professionals at all levels should perceive and understand both overt and hidden messages from clients and receive and transmit communications competently. Communication and interpersonal skills can be defined as a series of actions of which both verbal and nonverbal information and ideas are exchanged. Body movements can be used to reinforce or emphasize what a person is saying and offer. Communication helps to spread information between two people or a group of people. It is the bases of all human relationship. As a result, this relationship creates, feeling of love, hatred, positive or negative attitude towards one another. When communicating, a communicator bears in mind a purpose to either inform the receiver or inform and influence the receiver. However, it is not expected that healthcare professionals should portray communication and interpersonal skills at the initial stage. For many health care professionals, particularly at the beginning of their career, there is a tension between being able to spend appropriate time getting to know the patient as an individual and the everyday workload demands. Minardi (1997) quotes “Whatever term are used, our belief is that anyone who takes on the task of caring for someone’s health needs requires the opportunity to become a more proficient communicator, thereby enhancing the best resource that they can provide for the client”. However, communicating a message can have a different meaning to two different people and we must realize that individuals perception and understanding during communication are different from one another.

Porritt and Porritt, (1990) quote that “When a language is learnt, a series of a symbol are learnt which gives meaning to the language as words. It is therefore frustrating to find when communicating with words which are assuming to have the same meaning for another person as it does to one, but to find a different reaction than expected”. However, a person can be a very good communicator, lacking interpersonal skills might not the satisfaction required or good or positive attitude. On a thought, one would think that these skills are the same but they both have a defined difference in their definition.

Effective and good communication and interpersonal skills are very important to a good interaction between two or group of people. Communication skills can be best defined as the act of performing a specific task as well as demonstrating it, such as when a health care professional explains a medical diagnose to a patient or service users. It is also when a person takes an idea and explain to another or a group of people in a way that is understandable. Communication can either be written, verbal or non-verbal.

Porritt (1990) wrote that, Verbal and non-verbal communication allows for a greater variety of expression. This variety can increase our accuracy in what we send, or it can contribute to greater confusion because of its very complexity. Communication is the basis of all interaction and the quality of interaction is affected by the network whereas the communication occurs. The message sent is not necessarily the message received for a variety of reason. Nonverbal signals are important for communicating emotions and attitude to others about ourselves. Attention to the nonverbal signals will prove invaluable when there is a wish to tune empathically to the real measure of another person’s message and is a crucial element in assessment. The conceptualisation and manipulation of symbols which form language and are then communicated as speech.

Mehrabian (1971) demonstrated that only 7% of what we communicate consists of the literal content of the message. The use of one’s voice, such as tone, intonation and volume, take up 38% and as much as 55% of communication consists of body language. In order for someone to be identified as being attentive, it is necessary for them to use appropriate non-verbal skills including body posture, facial expression and eye contact. Although, Egan (1990) suggested that series of nonverbal behaviour such as sitting squarely, open posture with client leaning forward slightly, eye contact and maintain a relaxed position. Healthcare professionals that use such skills are likely to be perceived as attentive and sympathetic by their patients Ellis and Beattie(1986) suggested that for nonverbal communication to be effective, it should consist of four elements, THE prosodic system which identifies the intonation and rhythm of verbal utterances, THE paralinguistic, which consist of vocal but non-verbal expression(such as mmm), The Kinetic system which consists of what is usually considered as body language, (gestures, facial expression.

Standing features as a nonverbal communication which include the element such as communicators appearance (such as clothes, adornments, scents etc. ) also it identifies proxemics which includes interpersonal and personal space and touches as other importance of communication Adair and Thomas (2003) concluded that the ability to listening makes a substantial possibility of improving patients health, care and wellbeing.