Humanizing nurse-patient communication: a challenge and a commitment

Nurse-patient communication has been a pre-established, unvarying, technical professional and impersonal form of manifestation, reflecting mainly the achievement of nurse's instrumental role. This situation is opposed to our nursing concept as well as to the professional values that we incorporated during our professional life, all of which emphasize the importance of the person and the patient and the meaning of the visualisation of care to a total human being. The present study aims at discussing this question, propitiating an opportunity of reflection about the necessity of humanizing this relationship in the Brazilian scenery. Thus, we focused on the importance of nurse-patient relationship not only as an essential component of nursing assistance but also as a treatment in itself. In addition, we stimulate nurses to examine the way they are taking care of human beings: as objects to be manipulated and treated or as persons that need care and comprehension. The article is concluded with the thesis that nursing is not a technical profession that manipulates knowledge and technologies but a work of valuing human beings, their freedom and dignity.