[Therapeutic communication in the professional and social practice of nursing]

The objective of this study was to identify the nurse's knowledge of the strategies of therapeutic and non-therapeutic communication and to evaluate their application on the professional and social practice. The strategies considered in this study were the ones proposed by Stefanelli (1985). The results have shown that nurses do not know the strategies although 42.1% said that at some time point during their academic life they were exposed to their content.