Responding to patients' concerns

Training our nursing staff in reflective responding techniques was a worthwhile project, and patients are benefitting from a staff better prepared to help them cope with some of the emotional stresses they face. Staff members now possess some basic helping skills on which other counseling skills may be built and have eliminated many nonhelpful responses. The participants are more aware of their unique role in helping patients deal with feelings about illness. By using these helping behaviors nursing staff members fulfill an autonomous function in the health care field. "They feel satisfied because they are doing a good job."