Self-Reflection in Communication

Intro

Research has shown that effective communication between patients and healthcare providers is essential for the provision of patient care and recovery. ffective communication is a two-way dialogue between patients and care providers. In that dialogue, both parties speak and are listened to without interrupting; they ask questions for clarity, express their opinions, exchange information, and grasp entirely and understand what the others mean. Also, Henly [11] argued that effective communication is imperative in clinical interactions. He observed that health and illness affect the quality of life, thereby making health communication critical and that the “intimate and sometimes overwhelming nature of health concerns can make communicating with nurses and other healthcare providers very challenging” [11]. Furthermore, Henly [11] added that patient-centered communication is fundamental to ensuring optimal health outcomes, reflecting long-held nursing values that care must be individualized and responsive to patient health concerns. Given the prevalence of face-to-face and device-mediated communications and interactions in healthcare settings, we must explore and clarify who, what, where, when, why, and how interactions with individuals, families, and communities are receiving care and health services [11]. The kind of nurse-patient relationships established between nurses and patients and their caregivers will affect how they communicate. Since nurses and patients may have different demographic characteristics, cultural and linguistic backgrounds, beliefs, and worldviews about health and illnesses, nurses’, patients’, and caregivers’ attitudes can affect nurse-patient communication and care outcomes. For instance, differences in nurses’ and patients’ cultural backgrounds and belief systems have been identified as barriers to therapeutic communication and care [12, 13, 21]. Research shows that patients’ beliefs and cultural backgrounds affected their communication with nurses in Ghana [16]. The

Beliefs

Effective communication has positive effects on the patients, including improved vital signs, decreased pain and anxiety, increased satisfaction, improved treatment outcomes, and enhanced participation in treatment programs. The art of reflection encourages the person to search for and evaluate solutions in equivocal and complicated situations.10 The experience of utilizing the reflection process in a clinical setting causes a sense of ownership towards the created knowledge in nurses, because they achieve this knowledge through focusing on their own experience, using creative methods.11 The process of reflection starts when the person refers to his/her own experience and recollects what has occurred, reconsiders the experience, and reevaluates it.12 This effective strategy also improves critical thinking and problem-solving skills in nurses.13 Reflection is regarded as a proof of professionalism and is used as a skill related to clinical performance and professional behavior.14 Reflective thinking in recent years has been considered as a learning strategy for nursing students while not being used by novice nurses in practice.15 Studies have suggested that reflective thinking as a skill should be learned and used continuously.16,17 In general, nurses should know how to have reflection on their clinical performance and practice it re

Reflective Practice	Consideration
How are you feeling?	Nurses are not exempt from life circumstances that can cause uncomfortable emotions like sadness, anger, frustration, as well as other emotions such as happiness and gratefulness. While it may be impossible to put aside your emotions, having a sense of your emotions and their cause is a very powerful tool to avoid inadvertent miscommunication.
What is occupying your thoughts?	It can be helpful to step outside of the narrative in your mind. It is not abnormal for a thought to pervade your thinking, but suspending such thoughts and being in the moment with the client can assist with better communication. Consider if something is weighing on you. Are you ruminating about an event, a person, an idea?
In what ways are you physically expressing your emotions and thoughts?	Your emotions and thoughts are sometimes physically expressed through facial expressions, hand gestures, and body language. Can someone tell that you are happy or sad by looking at you? Being aware of the physical expression of your emotions and thoughts can assist you in your communication with others and enable you to convey emotions like empathy, compassion, and concern.
How is your health and wellbeing?	Often physiological and psychological/emotional events like hunger, fatigue, body aches, and sadness can shape your mood. Reflect on how you are feeling in relation to your body and mind and pay attention to your body’s cues.
What is the environment surrounding you?	Even when you think you are accustomed to the work environment, subtle triggers can affect your ability to effectively communicate. A beeping machine, foul smell, or bright lights may affect your ability to focus, show concern, and actively listen. Reflect on yourself in relation to the environment and consider what factors you can and cannot control.

reflection enables a personal insight into the communication process and highlights the inherent challenges of communication and their pertinence to patient care and clinical practice outcomes. Reflection is a process of exploring and examining ourselves, our perspectives, attributes, experiences, and actions and interactions, which helps us gain insight and see how to move forward (Gillett et al, 2009:164). Reflection is a cycle (Figure 1; Gibbs, 1988), which, in nursing, enables the individual to consciously think about an activity or incident, and consider what was positive or challenging and, if appropriate, plan how a similar activity might be enhanced, improved or done differently in the future (Royal College of Nursing (RCN), 2019). Reflective practice is the ability to reflect on one's actions and experiences so as to engage in a process of continuous learning (Oelofsen, 2012), while enhancing clinical knowledge and expertise (Caldwell and Grobbel, 2013). A key rationale for reflective practice is that experience alone does not necessarily lead to learning—as depicted by Gibbs' reflective cycle (1988). Deliberate reflection on experience, emotions, actions and responses is essential to informing the individual's existing knowledge base and in ensuring a higher level of understanding (Paterson and Chapman, 2013). Reflection on practice is a key skill for nurses—it enables them to identify problems and concerns in work situations and in so doing, to make sense of them and to make contextually appropriate chang

Marcelin JR, Siraj DS, Victor R, Kotadia S, Maldonado YA. The impact of unconscious bias in healthcare: how to recognize and mitigate it. The Journal of infectious diseases. 2019 Aug 20;220(Supplement_2):S62-73. https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/220/Supplement_2/S62/5552356

Ponizovskiy V, Grigoryan L, Kühnen U, Boehnke K. Social construction of the value–behavior relation. Frontiers in Psychology. 2019 May 1;10:934.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6504687/

Gamage KA, Dehideniya DM, Ekanayake SY. The role of personal values in learning approaches and student achievements. Behavioral sciences. 2021 Jul 16;11(7):102.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-328X/11/7/102/htm