Interactive Nursing Skills

Many studies of the nursing profession highlight the lack of interactive skills, especially communication, as a major barrier to staff and patient satisfaction. Proper interactive skills with colleagues can improve the mood of a professional setting, and efficient communication with patients can decrease the risk of avoidable death. In the fast-paced culture of hospital life, the ability to communicate effectively and efficiently vastly increases productivity and diminishes a variety of risks.

Verbal Communication Skills

• Learn the proper verbal communication skills that you need to instruct your patients how to get better, or collaborate with colleagues to come up with solutions to various nursing problems. According to a 1990 study on nursing and communication skills published in The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, poor communication skills among nursing professionals leads to an increase in both lawsuits and avoidable patient death.

  Listen with your full attention and give constructive feedback while in a professional setting. This applies to communicating with both colleagues and patients. Proper listening includes attention to verbal detail, which is important for both proper diagnoses and effective treatment. If you miss an important detail while communicating with a patient or colleague, the effect on patient care can be drastic. If you have trouble listening effectively, keep a notepad with you at all times to record any important notes. Constructive feedback can increase the level of trust and help find solutions to difficult problems in patient care.

  Use a positive tone of voice in a professional setting to increase your relationship-building skills. In the nursing profession, it is important build professional relationships with both your patients and nursing colleagues to create a level of trust in your work. Having a wide understanding of the medical profession is important, but communicating the information you have in a useful manner will increase your productivity.

Nonverbal Communication Skills

• Learn how to use touch, facial expressions and other nonverbal communication principles while in a professional setting. Proper nonverbal communication skills will allow you to effectively express both your ideas and your willingness to serve your patients. Touch especially can create a concrete bond with your patient, but be careful to make sure that your touch remains within the patient's comfort level. A 1991 article published in American Fitness states that touch can lessen pain and anxiety, and increase a patient's will to improve.

  If your patients are averse to being touched, utilize positive facial expressions or other body language that can express a positive attitude toward healing.

Counseling

• Counsel your patients effectively to both establish and pursue an effective course of treatment. Effective counseling requires both active listening and encouraging body language. When you need to gather a wide array of information from a patient, such as symptoms, use open questions that cannot be easily answered in one or two words. For instance, ask a patient how they're feeling overall instead of inquiring about specific symptoms.

  Summarize the reasons a patient's treatment is necessary when prescribing it to them. This will help the patient connect the ideas of taking their medication properly with the restoration of their previous health, increasing their chances of following the course of treatment properly.