Purpose: Therapeutic communication between nurses and patients is a method of interaction occurring throughout the process of identifying and resolving the patient's health problems. This study investigated the effects of interventions on nursing students' therapeutic communication competency.
Methods: This mixed methods study used a sequential exploratory design involving four sessions of therapeutic communication interventions with 40 third-year nursing students in South Korea. A pre- and post-therapeutic communication competence survey was conducted, and the effect was confirmed through individual interviews. Paired t-tests assessed the difference in therapeutic communication competence, while qualitative data underwent content analysis.
Results: Therapeutic communication competence results improved from 79.30 to 89.58 points out of 100. Three themes were derived: "the process of properly recognizing myself," "active learning to understand communication between myself and others," and "successful steps toward practicing sincere nursing."
Conclusions: Therapeutic communication interventions involving mirroring interviews and shared experiences improves nursing students' patient-centered communication skills. The findings provided evidence for strategies needed to improve therapeutic communication competency in clinical settings.
In the emergency department (ED), triage significantly impacts patient safety. Therefore, triage nurses must make decisions accurately and timeously. This study aims to investigate how South Korean pediatric emergency nurses perceive urgency and classify severity using the Q methodology, which examines individuals' subjectivity.
We collected 84 statements from a Q population based on a literature review and interviews and selected 33 Q samples. The P samples included 30 pediatric emergency nurses at a Seoul tertiary care hospital. The principal component factor analysis method was used to analyze data using the PC-QUANL program.
Four urgency perception types were identified among pediatric ED nurses—Type 1: “Experiential coping”; Type 2: “Careful reasoning”; Type 3: “Patient-centered thinking”; and Type 4: “Intuitive prediction.” These types appear to be an integrated process of knowledge and clinical experience that considers children's characteristics and developmental stages.
This study may serve as a basis for future education to improve pediatric ED nurses′ urgency judgment and severity classification skills.