Question

More than 95% of nurses’ work and responsibilities involved in providing direct nursing care on patients. One of the challenges faced by nurses and student nurses is understanding patients’ emotion. There are many reasons why nurses and student nurses need to have good understanding of patients’ emotion during illness in delivering their nursing care. Topic of assignment:
As a student nurses giving nursing care to your patients describe:
1. What are the possible measures to enhance student nurse’s emotional
intelligence?

Answer 1

Emotional intelligence is key in delivering effective healthcare ad patient management. Emotions act as a strong force that can act as a multiplier in conjugation with treatment in patient to accelerate positive health outcomes in patients. The following are the measures to enhance student nurse’s emotional intelligence:

1. Correct identification of emotions: When in crisis of communication with the patient, it is critical to identify the correct emotions behind the patient's words. Once the emotions are correctly identified the correct logic and emotional context can be effectively addressed

2. Using emotions to reason: Emotions are a great tool to dilute a situation to a good reason. Using emotional cues, we can help patient understand the emotional context behind the treatment and care plan and nudge the patient towards responding and cooperating with treatment.

3. Active listening: Listening is the key to unravel the hidden emotions that the patient is delivering. Listening actively can help clarify the emotional context that the patient is facing and can help to channel his emotions in the right direction and help patient in better treatment

4. Respond instead of reacting: Often emotional reactions to patient complains or behavior invokes a response that is a reaction rather than a professional and emotionally sensitive response. At the time where emotions are high we can calm down the situations by positive emotional cues and help the response to have a bigger impact on patient treatment

5. Maintaining positive attitude: Emotions are attracted towards positive attitudes. A positive attitude in a nursing student can invoke emotions of well being and calmness which are critical for patient response and recovery to the treatment

6. Develop empathy: Understanding the a patient's pain, anger, suffering, etc are strong emotions which are required to be nurtured by applying empathy to the treatment. By using empathy we can not only tame the raging difficulties but also channel the emotions in positive direction to assist speedy recovery.