Communication Disparities in Nursing Practice
Naty Jane Shackelford Grand Canyon University: NUR 502
June 14, 2015
Diana D. Naser, PhD, APRN

Description of Problem Efficacious communication is universally recognized to be the fundamental antecedent of patient fulfillment, conformity and convalescence. All through the years, remarkable and crucial imperfection of communication skills amongst health care professionals particularly nurses validated the fact that it is the fundamental reason why patients are flustered and disturbed in recognizing and apprehending their diagnosis, and treatment plan. Furthermore, the pervasiveness of internet and its universal acceptance, and more hospitals are transforming into epic, present immense communication disparities between patients and nurses which urge a detailed and scrupulous investigation of how nursing theoretical frameworks hold up in these current circumstances. With this evolution, accompanied by the increasing life expectancy, older patients are the most affected with the growing breach in communication. Theory’s application to the Problem Hildegard E. Peplau’s Interpersonal Relations Theory, is a significant benchmark of the twentieth century, being the earliest nursing philosophical conception. The prototype theory and succeeding improvements have been differently categorized as a broad or grand theory. The theory revolves on the therapeutic method and technique between patient and nurses, this emphasis makes association with the patient a paramount influence on their therapeutic option that will probably enhance patient’s cognition of their situation and eventually liberate and enable them to make favorable and beneficial changes. Peplau stresses the crucial position and supreme character of interaction that is meticulously steered by the nurses. Her theory recognized six roles or nursing: stranger, resource person, teacher, leader, surrogate and counselor and four imbricating stages of relationships: orientation, identification, exploitation and resolution and subsequently she minimize and convert the stages to orientation, working and termination. This theory is appropriate to this deliberation because various fundamental hypothesis and beliefs are established in Peplau’s Interpersonal Relations Theory. Communication and interaction and its dimensions in stimulating a healthy relationship between patient and nurses are quintessential to Peplau’s Theory. Nurses’ comprehension of self and ability to communicate is integral to effectual growth and progress of the therapeutic relationship and the patient’s proficiency and capability which can lead to one’s empowerment. In Peplau’s Interpersonal Relations Theory, the supposition that if a nurse and patient communicate, both will be responsible as an outcome of the communication and questioning skills persist to be the vital nursing tool. Moreover, she illustrates connectedness as a central human need and affectionately expressed that the nurse and patient relationship is the fundamental human connection in providing nursing care. About the Theory’s Origin The relationship between patient and nurse is extremely valuable in the practice and undoubtedly assist nurses and other health care providers enhance therapeutic intercessions in the clinical situation. As a consequence, Hildegard E. Peplau developed her Interpersonal Relations Theory in 1952, which was intensely and vigorously influenced by Henry Stack Sullivan, Percival Symonds, Abraham Maslow and Neal Elgar Miller. Her philosophy illustrated nursing as “an interpersonal process of therapeutic interactions between an individual who is sick or in need of health services and a nurse especially educated to recognize, respond to the need”. Peplau proceeded and advanced to design and configure a