Communication Skills: Building Rapport and Trust

These lessons are designed to help nurses sharpen their communication skills in order to build more therapeutic relationships with their patients. This lesson consists of a dramatized interactive experience with a patient which allows the users to create potentially many conversations between the patient and a nurse. The case studies give nurses and students an insight into, and appreciation for patients' inner emotional responses to illness. Beginning with an initial monologue, the user controls the nurse's behaviour, choosing how to respond. Non-therapeutic choices spark hostile or angry responses, just as therapeutic responses encourage the patient to be more co-operative and calm. In addition to building a therapeutic relationship, the user must perform stated nursing tasks. Users also have an opportunity to identify communication barriers and facilitators in a short quiz, and assess their performance by categorizing their responses into common communication categories.
 
These lessons are designed to help nurses sharpen their communication skills in order to build more therapeutic relationships with their patients. This lesson consists of a dramatized interactive experience with a patient which allows the users to create potentially many conversations between the patient and a nurse. The case studies give nurses and students an insight into, and appreciation for patients' inner emotional responses to illness. Beginning with an initial monologue, the user controls the nurse's behaviour, choosing how to respond. Non-therapeutic choices spark hostile or angry responses, just as therapeutic responses encourage the patient to be more co-operative and calm. In addition to building a therapeutic relationship, the user must perform stated nursing tasks. Users also have an opportunity to identify communication barriers and facilitators in a short quiz, and assess their performance by categorizing their responses into common communication categories.