Health & Social Care

Unit 1, Pass 2
Developing effective communication skills in health and social care

The communication theory helps to explain effective communication in a health and social care environment. There are two theories that we follow, one is by Michael Argyle and the other is by Tuchman which covers the stages of a group interaction. The communication cycle is a two way process in which each person tries to understand the viewpoint of the other person.

A good communication is checking the process of understanding and using reflective or active listening to make sure there ideas have been understood. Within this cycle there are 6 steps. An idea occurs, message coded, message sent, message received, message decoded and message understood. Doing this involves effort from both the sender of the message and the receiver. By successfully getting your message across, you convey your thoughts and ideas effectively. For example, someone dying, we can use the Communication Cycle to make sure that we don't say anything insensitive or even hurtful to the person who is meant to be receiving the information. We can use the communication cycle to encode the information correctly. and therefore, saying something like ‘I’m so sorry, unfortunately last night your husband died, we did everything we could’ rather than something like "Your husband died last night,” The first of which is a correct way of putting it, and the second way is a much more insensitive way of saying it. You must think of the communication cycle when dealing with these types of sensitive situations to prevent hurting someone or making the person more distressed Therefore through the way the second response was said the communication between the people will be affected, as the wife of the husband would feel as though they didn’t try and they don’t care as much as they should, which may hold a weight on her grieving. This is why doctors must engage in their job to an extent as this is what they should do, have sympathy and care for their patients.
An example would be a doctor talking to a patient; and asking her if she has taken her medication, firstly he sits the patient across a long desk so that she’s the other side of the room, whilst he’s the other end. Already this is a barrier to communication because the conversation is meant to be private; however sitting far away doesn’t show a one on one, as the rest of the people in the room will be able to hear.
Another example would be the way that the doctor is portraying themselves whilst having this conversation, if a doctor is sitting slouched and lounged over the desk then the patient may feel uncomfortable whilst speaking because they are not being listened to at a full potential. By the doctor using good eye contact and even hand gestures will make the patient feel at ease, try to not fidget with pens or equipment unnecessarily, as this shows signs such as boredom. The part of the cycle that would break down in this situation is the message being received and understood, as there are barriers affecting these.
One more barrier for this is to avoid rolling your eyes. Eye rolling is not only unprofessional, but it also mocks the speaker. The eye roll is perceived as a negative gesture and will in most cases make the other person angry and/or defensive. If you find yourself in a disagreement a patient, try to avoid rolling your eyes, as in the cycle most of the 6 steps will be broken down as there is no professional relationship there to engage in at least getting the message coded, let alone the rest of the six steps.

Tuchman’s stage of group interaction is Tuchman’s theory which explains the main stages new groups or teams go through in their formation. Bruce Tuchman believed that there are four basic and predictable stages of development. These four stages include forming, storming, norming, and performing. Forming in which the group is just coming together. Storming in which having been