Barriers To Forming An Effective Relationship With Families

Barriers To Forming An Effective Relationship With Families

In the healthcare setting, establishing effective relationships with families is centered on active communication. The overall satisfaction of the families is dependent on how nurses convey crucial information about their patient’s prognosis; thus, any factor that would derail communication between the parties would affect the development of an effective relationship (Hetland et al., 2017). Among the probable barriers to developing connections with families in nursing include inadequate time to communicate, conflicting beliefs regarding treatment, miscommunication, and language barriers. Factors that lead to misunderstandings between the patients’ families and nurses create a disconnect that prevents the creation of a proper relationship.

While nurses acknowledge the need to promote effective communication to develop excellent associations with patients’ families, the workload within the healthcare setting deprives them of adequate time to interact. Nurses are accountable for caring for diverse patients whose needs vary depending on their medical conditions, with critically ill individuals demanding maximum attention; thus, limited time is allocated for interaction with the families to enhance the relationship (Hetland et al., 2017). The limited time that nurses interact with the families is unproductive as they experience fatigue and burnout and hence cannot exhaustively converse to enhance the clarity of the existing patient condition.

Inadequate communication time with the families translates to miscommunication as there are high chances of the patients and the families misinterpreting information. Consequently, due to nurses’ burnout, they might fail to offer concrete information crucial for the care of the patients resulting in adverse health outcomes. Moreover, families with a limited understanding of a prognosis are incapacitated to seek clarity in the information they receive from the providers, worsening the situation (Hetland et al., 2017). In the event of miscommunication, the relationship between the families of the patients and the nurses is distorted, leading to increased dissatisfaction.

In a multi-ethnic healthcare setting, language barriers can greatly affect the development of an effective relationship with the patient’s family as disconnect exists in communication. While healthcare settings should have a diverse workforce to represent the surrounding population, there are instances where nurses encounter language barriers that make it challenging to offer appropriate care to the patients (Van Keer et al., 2015). The language barrier is a common issue among community nurses who have to be informed about the ethnic groups in a region prior to a visit. Establishing an active association with the families becomes a hurdle in the absence of a translator to facilitate communication, leading to decreased patient and family satisfaction.

Conversely, conflict is observed when the beliefs of the patients and their families contrast those of the providers, thus derailing the relationship. While conflict of interest is often steered by ignorance of the patients regarding treatment courses or the providers concerning ethnic stereotyping, it results in enhanced suffering of the patient and a subsequent decrease in the satisfaction of the families (Van Keer et al., 2015). For instance, a family from the Jehovah’s Witness faith that does not endorse blood transfusion would initiate conflict with the nurses when the need emerges. Lack of cultural competence among nurses and enhanced knowledge among the families are the driving forces of conflicting views that affect the development of relationships.

Conflict of interest in the context of developing a relationship with families can exist in providers’ payment plans involving daily incentives that promote inappropriate clinical practice. Every payment method to the providers has the ability to put the workers’ main interest in enhancing the best interest of their patients at odds with their secondary fiscal interests. When families realize that the payment for the medical service was influenced by their selfish interests, the association is distorted alongside their satisfaction. Conflict of interest has the potential to negatively affect the productivity of health workers, reducing patients’ family contentment.

Overall, issues that promote misunderstanding build a disconnect between health workers and families that deters forming an effective relationship. Health professionals need to invest in effective communication and create time to interact with families to enhance relationships. Ineffective communication, ignorance, and cultural incompetence form the basis of the distorted association between families and health providers. Nurses are obligated to enhance communication with the families to overcome the barriers to establishing effective associations.

References

Hetland, B., Hickman, R., McAndrew, N., & Daly, B. (2017). Factors influencing active family engagement in care among critical care nurses. AACN advanced critical care, 28(2), 160- https://doi.org/10.4037/aacnacc2017118

Van Keer, R. L., Deschepper, R., Francke, A. L., Huyghens, L., & Bilsen, J. (2015). Conflicts between healthcare professionals and families of a multi-ethnic patient population during critical care: an ethnographic study. Critical Care, 19(1), 1-13. https://doi.org / 10.1186/s13054-015-1158-4

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