How Nurses Can Relax the Patient
In our everyday duty at the hospital, we nurses faces different kinds of patients, from the calmest to the angriest. And a day won’t be complete without the irritated one. These patients are emotionally charged and we nurses should know how to extinguish the anger in them. But there are some nurses who, despite the intention of calming down the patient, escalates the irritation instead.
So, we list down ways how a nurse can calm their patients:
Speak with a lower voice. No matter how agitated the patient is, or how ear-damaging their voice is, nurses should always speak to them in a lower voice. Matching the elevated voice of the patient won’t make everything between your conversation clear. It will only make everything worse.
Focus on the patient. Nurses can calm the patient by making them feel that your attention is more focused on them other than their situation. Our empathy and how we care for them is much appreciated than how we treated their illness.
Talk to them. Admit it or not, we sometimes use a dictator tone when talking to patients and trying to calm them, which is a no-no. We nurses should convey our suggestions for the patients well-being in a manner that we don’t appear to be commanding them what they should do.
Focus on the patient’s need. Do not stress yourself how to attend to your patient’s medical needs. Sometimes, the simplest is the best. Nurses have to focus on what the patient really needs as a whole, aside from them itself.
Empower the patient. Let the patient decide on their own, but we nurses should guide them on the right track that we know can help their medical situation. We should give them choices and not ultimatums.
No matter how difficult our patient is, we should always be ready to calm them. Never clash with them, or else, everything else will only get worst than before they come in to ask for our assistance.
Published at: 05/06/2015
