More than 80% of NPs routinely used speaking slowly and limiting content to 2 or 3 main points. Listening and speaking are equally important. Verbal cues beyond the message itself are also important, according to the American Nurses Association and AONE. Non-dental healthcare providers, such as NPs, are uniquely positioned to contribute to preventing early childhood dental caries through health-literate and patient-centered communication. Two statistical models, rather than one model, and cautious interpretation were used to control for potential selection bias. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Nearly all (95.9%) reported routine use of simple language (Fig 1). The questionnaire consisted of two parts. here. No, Is the Subject Area "Allied health care professionals" applicable to this article? Verbal Communication. Checking patient understanding is so important that Healthy People 2020 contains a national public health objective “to increase the proportion of persons who report their health care provider always asked them to describe how they will follow the instructions” [25]. Laura W. Koo was the primary author of the manuscript and contributed to the interpretations of the findings. Nineteen percent of NPs reported routinely followed up with patients by telephone to check understanding and adherence, and 22.3% routinely asked office staff to follow-up with patients for post-care instructions. Department of Organizational Systems and Adult Health, School of Nursing, University of Maryland Baltimore, Baltimore, MD, United States of America, Affiliation Nurses should pay close attention to these patients’ nonverbal cues to learn about what they’re trying to express. These researchers also noted that active listening typically doesn’t happen during “hurried communications,” emphasizing the need to slow down and take the time to effectively communicate. Our findings suggest that NPs who had assessed the office for patient-friendliness or who had taken a communication course beyond their initial education may be predictors for using more of the 7 basic communication techniques. The draft of the survey questionnaire was reviewed by 6 clinicians with nursing backgrounds, but they were not all NPs. Effective communication is bilateral, according to Kourkouta and Papathanasiou. However, effective communication also requires consideration of nonverbal cues. Accuracy for effective communication can’t be understated. Provider characteristics and practice characteristics were the independent variables in each of the models. As you work toward your Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree, it’s important to develop effective communication skills as a future nurse leader and patient advocate. If the nonverbal cues don’t match the verbal communication, listeners should employ active listening techniques to ensure they understand a message correctly. Evidence regarding the effectiveness of using a video or DVD, handing out printed materials, underlining key points on print materials, and following-up with patients by telephone to check understanding and adherence needs to be further established and disseminated in the literature. Race/ethnicity was assessed with one item in which participants voluntarily selected among the following options: white, black, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, American Indian/Native Alaskan, or other/please specify. General linear models were used as follows: analysis of variance with the dependent variable of “mean number of communication techniques routinely used per week” and ordinary least squares regression with the dependent variable of “number of communication techniques routinely used per week”. Nurse-patient communication is anchored by strong interpersonal relationships. All authors approved the final version and accept responsibility for its contents. This observation is especially true in high-intensity environments, such as those in which nurses typically work, when communication typically goes beyond words, according to the American Nurses Association and AONE. Excellent verbal communication is key. Nurse Practitioner Programs Communication is a key skill for leaders in any workplace. A patient-centered provider bears the responsibilities of helping ensure patients have accurate, accessible and usable information, as well as the support needed to make decisions and participate in their own care [28]. The following characteristics were not significantly associated with differences in mean numbers of communication techniques used, out of the 7 basic communication techniques and out of the 17 techniques, according to the bivariate analysis: year of graduation, race/ethnicity, sex, ever taken a communication course in addition to nursing school, inclusion of children in practice versus no children in practice, percentage of child patients with Medicaid, and practice setting (Table 4). Which degree program are you most interested in. Three sequential mailings were sent approximately three weeks apart. The modes for the two teach-back items were “most of the time” for asking patients to repeat back instructions (41.2%) and for asking patient to describe how they would follow instructions at home (38.1%). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4844478/ Yes Models were run for the 17 communication techniques and for the 7 basic communication techniques. What degree level are you interested in pursuing? Physicians in Maryland who had taken a communication course in addition to their education, compared to those who had not, reported using more communication techniques routinely [2]. No, Is the Subject Area "Social communication" applicable to this article? Nurse practitioners who took a communication course in addition to nursing school used a higher number of the 7 basic communication techniques per week than the NPs who had not taken a communication course (Coefficient .97, SE .31, p < .01) (Table 5) in the ordinary least squares regression model, but this significance was not demonstrated in bivariate analysis (p = .82) (Table 4). In their paper “Active Listening: The Key of Successful Communication in Hospital Managers,” Vahid Kohpeima Jahromi, Seyed Saeed Tabatabaee, Zahra Esmaeili Abdar, and Mahboobeh Rajabi explained, “Active listening requires listening for the content, intent, and feeling of the speaker.” Active listeners should ask questions and give nonverbal, visual cues to indicate they take an interest in what a speaker is saying and understand it. Kourkouta and Papathanasiou observed, “The message sent is not the same as the message received.” The listener decodes the speaker’s message in a process subject to perceptions and individual factors. General linear models explored provider and practice characteristics to predict differences in the total number and the mean number of communication techniques routinely used in a week. These organizations encourage nurses to listen for a speaker’s tone and the emotions conveyed to gain a greater understanding of the message. 2. Both variables of assessing the office for user-friendliness and taking a communication course in addition to their education predicted reported use of greater numbers of communication techniques routinely used according to surveys of dentists and dental hygienists in Maryland [4,6].