Communicating effectively with patients is not only a GDC requirement but also vital for good patient care. In a surgery setting, barriers such as anxiety, fear and phobias often make communication with patients more difficult. Recognizing and understanding how a patient may be feeling is important but how can you improve the way you can communicate with them to help ensure better outcomes? Many dental professionals understandably focus on what they say to patients but there is a significant body of evidence that suggests the spoken word only plays a relatively small part in effective communication. Psychological studies suggest that the non-verbal communication such as gestures, body language, posture, eye contact and paralinguistics are the more significant factors in ensuring messages get across effectively and are understood. In fact, it is thought that the verbal element of a message in a face-to-face setting may only make up as little as 7% of the overall communication between individuals and that the decoding of a message is mainly made up of our understanding of non-verbal elements. This lecture will provide an insight into psychological thinking behind non-verbal communication and suggest some practical ways dental professionals can incorporate simple but effective techniques to improve patient relationships.
Learning Objectives:
- To understand the barriers to effective communication
- To recognize the different forms of non-verbal communication and how to decode the messages
- To learn different techniques to improve our communication skills