PMID: 8700415

Issn Print: 0363-3624

Publication Date: 1996/01/01


Print

Teaching Communication Techniques with the Flash Card Method

+ Author Information

Author Information: Assistant Professor of Nursing, Clinical Nurse Specialist, Kent State University, East Liverpool, Ohio.

    loading  Checking for direct PDF access through Ovid

Excerpt

Our spring semester course of psychiatric mental health nursing—Nursing 10005: Therapeutic Use of Self—has a major focus on learning therapeutic communication techniques. When our associate degree nursing students see the number of techniques to be learned (25 for therapeutic techniques, 19 for non-therapeutic techniques), moans and groans and “do we really have to know all of them?” besiege the instructors. Although empathetic to their intense study loads, we recognize the importance of these techniques in the therapeutic nurse/patient relationships.
Encouraging the associate degree nursing nursing students to study the required communication techniques became a challenge to the faculty. Learning the techniques is a twofold task, including 1) memorizing the actual statement or words and 2) understanding the purpose or meaning that each technique represents in communication.
After some brainstorming, my colleague and I came up with the idea of a flash card system to stimulate learning and retention. The tool was introduced during the first campus laboratory session. The design and format included the following: 1) separate 4 × 6" index cards for each technique; 2) the specific technique on front of card; 3) the heading or title of each technique and the purpose or explanation of its intent on the back of the card; and 4) TT (therapeutic technique) or NT (nontherapeutic technique) placed on the back of the card. We asked students if they would be willing to voluntarily initiate such a project. The majority jumped on the bandwagon.
We asked the students to bring their communication flash cards to the next campus laboratory the following week. Students were divided into their clinical groups. Instructions given on how to use the communication flash cards included: selection of a group leader for each clinical group; selection of a series of three TT and three NT cards; “flashing” the card to the group (leader may need to read the card); correct answers called out for each technique, plus its significance or purpose needed to be given by same student. The student with the most correct responses became the next group leader; the time limit set for the group activity was apporoximately 30 to 45 minutes.
Once campus laboratories were completed, the students demonstrated more self-awareness and self-confidence with the communication techniques. The flash cards went with students to their hospital clinical sites. Preconference warm-up sessions with the cards became a regular exercise.
Overall, the student response and motivation for learning the communication techniques were very favorable. The students' test scores in this area improved, and they had more self-confidence in the therapeutic nurse/petient relationship.
    loading  Loading Related Articles