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Journal of Intensive and Critical Care Nursing | Volume 2
October 24-25, 2019 | Zurich, Switzerland
2nd European
Nursing Congress
International Conference on
Clinical Nursing & Practice
Joint Event
&
J Intensive Crit Care Nurs, Volume 2
Misunderstandings in interpersonal and inter-professional communication and their
impact on health outcomes and patient safety
Nabi Fathi
Gothenburg University, Sweden
S
ince clinical health communication is the basic stage
in the process of diagnosis and treatment, adequate
clinical interaction is essential between patients and
healthcare providers, as well as between the clinicians
involved. The healthcare communication modes that are the
focus of this study are interpersonal and inter-professional
encounters, which in both cases involve both oral and written
communication. This paper will review the literature on
factors influencing clinical encounters and their impact on
health outcomes and patient safety. Inadequate oral and
written communication leads to misunderstanding in clinical
encounters, which causes patient insecurity. In addition
to language and culture, as the main factors that influence
communication outcome, professionalism, caring attitudes,
time, respect and openness are additional factors that are
frequently mentioned in this context. Oral communication
between healthcare providers may be performed directly or
throughathirdperson(interpreter)whofacilitatesencounters
in cases of a language barrier between the patient and
the caregiver. Mutual understanding in both interpersonal
and inter-professional communication is very important
for quality health care and patient satisfaction. Written
misunderstandings are more visible in inter-professional
encounters, whereas in interpersonal communication
oral misunderstandings are more frequent. Cultural
misunderstandings in clinical encounters may be rooted in
individual, organizational or ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
The last will be in focus in this study. Due to the significant
of communication as the basic stage in the diagnosis and
treatmentprocedures,itisvitaltopreventsmisunderstandings
in communication between patients and caregivers during
clinical encounters as well as between the clinicians.
e
:
nabi.fatahi@gu.se