The nurse-patient communication: voices from nursing students

Background:Effective communication skills have been found to be one of the pivotal factors in building positive interpersonal relationships. Little is known about nursing undergraduates’ perspectives on communicating with patients.Objective:This study aimed to explore nursing students’ perspectives and experiences of nurse-patient communication in their clinical placement.Methods:The participants included 21 second-year undergraduates and 21 first-year master’s students. Interviews were conducted in Cantonese and then transcribed in Chinese and translated into English. A content analysis approach was adopted to analyze the data.Results:Five themes emerged from the interview data. ‘The necessity of nurse-patient communication’ reveals why the students valued nurse-patient communication. ‘The conversation contents’ describes the content of the conversations that students typically had with patients. The third theme is ‘self-reflection on the nurse-patient communication’. The last two themes, ‘the communication pattern in different hospital settings’ and ‘the obstacles impeding nurse-patient communication’, are about the students’ communication styles in different hospitals and the barriers they encounter.Discussion:To improve students’ communication skills, educators and clinical staff should listen to students, enhance students’ reflective skills and strengthen their confidence.Conclusion:Through understanding students’ difficulties in the nurse-patient communication experience and the skills that they lack, educators can provide them with helpful recommendations to improve their communication skills in clinical practice.Practice implications:The results of this study reveal that students’ nurse-patient communication skills need to be improved.