Baccalaureate nursing students' communication process in the clinical setting

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Qualitative Research
• Grounded Theory

Background:

• Effective patient communication is vital in nursing.
• Nursing students face challenges in clinical communication.
• Developing communication skills is a key learning objective.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe and generate theory on baccalaureate nursing students' communication with patients.
• To explore the social psychological processes involved in clinical communication.
• To identify communication strategies and patterns used by nursing students.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative grounded theory approach.
• Data collection through interviews and observations over two semesters.
• Analysis using open coding, theoretical coding, and memoing.

Main Results:

• Students experience "fear of saying the wrong things" and the problem of "saying the right things."
• Eight communication strategies and five patterns were identified.
• A four-stage social psychological process for learning a communication repertoire was uncovered.

Conclusions:

• The substantive grounded theory is the process of learning a personal communication repertoire.
• Clinical environments and role models (RNs) are crucial for this learning.
• Communicating with difficult patients is a critical developmental step for nursing students.