Nursing the patient with severe communication impairment Hemsley, Bronwyn, Sigafoos, Jeff, Balandin, Susan, Forbes, Ralph, Taylor, Christine, Green, Vanessa A. and Parmenter, Trevor 2001, Nursing the patient with severe communication impairment, Journal of advanced nursing, vol. 35, no. 6, pp. 827-835, doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2648.2001.01920.x. Attached Files Name Description MIMEType Size Downloads Title Nursing the patient with severe communication impairment Author(s) Hemsley, Bronwyn Sigafoos, Jeff Balandin, Susan orcid.org/0000-0003-4765-8232 Forbes, Ralph Taylor, Christine Green, Vanessa A. Parmenter, Trevor Journal name Journal of advanced nursing Volume number 35 Issue number 6 Start page 827 End page 835 Total pages 9 Publisher Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Place of publication Oxford, England Publication date 2001 ISSN 0309-2402 1365-2648 Keyword(s) Augmentative and alternative communication Barriers to effective communication Communication strategies Developmental and acquired disability Hospital care Nurse-patient communication Severe communication impairment Structured interviews Summary Background. Effective communication with patients is critical to effective nursing practice. Surprisingly, there is little information on nurses' experiences in caring for patients who are unable to speak. Purpose and method. This study provides descriptive information from interviews with 20 nurses who cared for patients with severe communication impairment. The interview protocol explored positive and negative experiences of nursing patients with severe communication impairment. Frequency counts and descriptive analyses were conducted to identify the major themes emerging from the interviews. Results. The results suggest that nurse-patient communication is difficult when the patient has severe communication impairment, although some nurses discovered effective strategies to facilitate communication with such patients. Many of the difficulties could be viewed as a breakdown in understanding arising from the lack of a readily interpretable communication system that could be used by nurse and patient. Conclusions. The results suggest a need for training nurses in the use of alternative modes of communication. Nurses also need access to a variety of simple augmentative communication devices for use with patients who are unable to speak. Finally, nurses should collaborate with speech pathologists on the development of preadmission information and bedside training for people who are admitted to hospital with severe communication impairment. Language eng DOI 10.1046/j.1365-2648.2001.01920.x Field of Research 119999 Medical and Health Sciences not elsewhere classified Socio Economic Objective 970111 Expanding Knowledge in the Medical and Health Sciences HERDC Research category C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal Persistent URL http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30067098 Document type: Journal Article Collections: Faculty of Health School of Health and Social Development Related Links Link Description Connect to published version (restricted access) Go to link with your DU access privileges     Unless expressly stated otherwise, the copyright for items in DRO is owned by the author, with all rights reserved. Versions Version Filter Type Tue, 14 Oct 2014, 13:30:57 EST Wed, 15 Oct 2014, 11:49:26 EST Filtered Full Citation counts:   Cited 77 times in TR Web of Science Cited 89 times in Scopus Search Google Scholar Access Statistics: 606 Abstract Views, 0 File Downloads  -  Detailed Statistics Created: Tue, 14 Oct 2014, 13:30:57 EST