Enhancing the Communication Skills of Critical Care Nurses: Focus on Prognosis and Goals of Care Discussions

One of our major lessons learned was recognizing that it was difficult for many critical care nurses to practice the new communication skills. Nurses are trained to fix problems and perform medico-technical tasks; “listening” has not always been recognized as real work [18]. We needed to reinforce that skills like eliciting another’s perspective or making reflection statements are equally important to those associated with behavioral/technical proficiency.

While our program has been successful, we recognize that the next step in fostering ideal palliative care communication is to provide education within an interdisciplinary context. We recommend that colleagues interested in replicating this or a similar education intervention, survey nurse participants prior to and following workshop participation to measure attitudes, self confidence and perceived barriers over time [30]. We hope to translate our positive experience into a program that engages multiple professionals in the enhancement of optimum palliative care communication proficiency.

Corresponding author: Deborah A. Boyle MSN, RN, AOCNS, Department of Nursing Quality, Research and Education, University of California, Irvine Health, 101 The City Drive, Bldg 22A, Room 3104, Orange, CA 92868.