Health Communication: A Need of Complete Treatment - Essay Example

Health Communication: A Need Of Complete Treatment Introduction: Health is an important aspect of life. People who are healthy are capable of enjoying all the pleasures of life. They are capable of taking the advantage of the opportunities that life offers and hence can make the most of the life. However, people who are not healthy are not capable as their movements are limited, they lack the energy and feel sad about it. What they need is a support and the understanding from the people around them so that they can heal themselves and become fit and healthy again. However, this happens only when the interaction between people who are healthy and people who are not healthy is positive, productive and mature. Communication is the only means through which the health problems can be solved with positive results. Our ideas of health care are influenced by our upbringing, grandma remedies, advertisers and media programs ( Athena du Pre, 2004, p3) . Every person is different in different ways. The cultural background and behavior pattern matters a lot in any communication. So the way you communicate with one person cannot work with the other person as he is not the same. Communication pattern changes and depends on all the parties involved in communication. (Athena du Pre, 2004, p4). Health is not just the physical aspect of our body. It means having a harmonious and peaceful balance of work, mind, relationships and life. Hence communication becomes a vital part of any health related treatment. The Scenario: Lena is girl who has come from the ethnic background Southeast Asia. She has been raised according to the cultural traditions of her native land even after staying in the United States for approximately ten years. One day, after Lena suddenly fainted in class, she was taken to hospital by her best friend Susie. Lena was upset to find herself in the emergency room with her best friend Susie sitting by her side. She yelled at Susie for bringing her there, exclaiming, “I’m not weak! I can get better on my own! You know this, Susie!” As she began to get out of bed, Susie notified a medical assistant, who came in and restrained Lena, saying, “Listen girl, I don’t have time to deal with this today! You need to stay here, you are sick!” Immediately after, the doctor interrupted the assistant, instructing her to leave the room. As the doctor calmly tried to explain to Lena her condition, she just sat there with a blank look on her face. She was perspiring heavily and did not acknowledge any of the doctor’s questions. Finally, the doctor said, “Fine, you are not going to respond? I have many other patients to attend to who actually want to get better,” and left the room. Analysis of the scenario: The scenario describes a complete failure of the communication in the health related matter. The lack of understanding and inability of the doctor and the carer to take control of the situation led the situation to get worse. Communication is possible only when there is emotional and social maturity shown by the parties involved. However, the above scenario shows the lack of maturity in all the people involved. Lena’s perspective: Lena is a person who comes from an south east Asian ethnic background. She is brought up in a tradition where the illness is mostly treated at home. People from south east Asia depend on home made medicines and spiritual ways for healing diseases rather than on doctors. Being well aware of the ayurveda and yoga tradition, people from south east Asia are well equipped to depend on these remedies for most of the disease. Lena was upset as she was brought to the hospital for fainting. She felt insulted as we can see that she said to Susie that she can take care of the problem herself and she is fit. However, her behavior was rude and unruly. She should have explained this to Susie calmly. Understanding that Susie comes from a different ethnic background, Lena should have shown some courtesy towards her. Lack of understanding on Len’s part started the misuderstandings. Moreover, media is also influencing the people who are young by glamorizing the unruly and rude behavior. Lena is young and hence vulnerable to such negative influences (Athena du Pre, 2004, p14). Susie’s perspective: Susie is a person who comes from an ethnic background where going to a hospital when something goes wrong with health is a common practice. She did right by taking Lena to the hospital. However, the only thing that was needed was when Lena got angry, rather than calling the assistant immediately, she should have comforted Lena and explained her that that was the best thing she could do. The word “you know this Susie” from Lena shows that Lena had confided the health related information to Susie and still Susie preferred to bring her to the hospital. This hurt Lena and made her feel that her cultural tradition is being insulted. What Susie did was right as far as her upbringing goes. However, a little explanation and comfort would have helped to resolve the situation. Medical Assistant: The behavior of the medical assistant was completely unexpected. The way the medical assistant dealt with Lena showed that she did not care about the person suffering from illness. She just wanted to finish the job and go. This made the matters worse as Lena, rather than getting comforted, became more stubborn and negative and now firmly believed that what Susie did was wrong. There are chances of Susie feeling guilty about what was happening and might make her to think that she will never help any friend in the future even if it is an emergency. Looking at the way the medical assistant behaved, it was evident that she was not happy with the job and she was under some sort of strain. Caregivers who do not communicate well between themselves create confusion for the patient as they lose trust even before building it. This puts the patient in a negative mode and he becomes close to the ideas and suggestions (Athena du Pre, 2004, p4). Doctor’s prspective: Doctor’s are under stress and pressure. However, they are the most important element in the treatment of the people who are unhealthy. If docter’s are not warm and understanding, then the person getting treated under him can become closed and negative towards the treatment. That’s what happened with Lena. She became closed emotionally and refused to cooperate. Rather than maintaining the composure and balance, the doctor lost his cool and left the room. No matter what, the warmth is an essential ingredient in any communication and no matter what cultural background you have, warmth is visible through eyes and aggression is evident through body language. Importance of communication: Personal goals are the reason why everyone work. Even though you are working in an organization where there are thousands of people working towards the same goal, everyone has their personal goal. The goals of professionals can be to display knowledge, preventing burnout, healing patients, inventing care techniques etc while patient can aim to be reassured, supported and loved and healed. So if the patient is scared, he might express it through anger and temper tantrums. In this case it becomes a job of the carer to understand why the patient is doing it and showing it with warmth rather than introducing some strict disciplinary routine to the patient. This again hampers the communication. Meeting goals is one of the important aspect of communication (Athena du Pre, 2004, p7). Health communication is defined as a way we seek, process and share health information (Athena du Pre, 2004, p8). Patients are also the creators of the communication pattern. They are under stress and may take a passive mode of communication by answering only in yes or no to all the questions. Patients are responsible for the environment they are creating as communication is a two way process and not a single one. Biomedical and Biopsychosocial model: Bimedical model believes that illness is a physical phenomenon and can be understood and explained scientifically and hence can be treated with physical means. Biomedical model is suited with people coming from a culture where machines and computers are the way of life(Athena du Pre, 2004, p10) . As it focuses on physical aspects of body, it is limited and quick. However, it treats the problem and not the cause. It has been rightly criticized as ignoring emotions and feelings of the patient and hence leaving the soul untouched. (Athena du Pre, 2004, p11) Biopsychosocial model believes that disease is the result of some maladjustment in life, relationship, society or emotional life. The result of the maladjustment is a disease. Eastern medicine like Ayurveda are well aware of this and hence in the ancient times, if you visited the ayurveda physician, he asked “who is it that is having a problem” and not “what is the problem?” It means that the different roles that a human being plays in life makes his health structure. So the meaning of the question is what role in the life is giving you a problem, a father, a son, and employee, a citizen? Ayurveda tries to find the essential nature of the person and hence the treatment becomes easy and permanent as you are treating the cause of the disease (Chopra, 2000, p19). As Biopsychosocial model considers the human interaction an important element of recovery and so clinics practicing this model gives great importance to tram work. ( Felicity p6). It is now scientifically proves that the emotional and mental state of a person plays an important role in the health of a person. Depression and hopelessness can cause a body to give way to the dangerous germs and elements. It causes body to weaken the resistant system and hence pave a way for diseases(Athena du Pre, 2004, p11). Caregivers should understand that giving 10 minutes to the approach of treating the emotions and the soul can have a wonderful effect on the patient and hence in fact save time, energy, create a feeling of satisfaction and happy environment. These things generate positive energy which in itself is a healing energy and hence in fact can quicken the process than consume more time(Athena du Pre, 2004, p12). Effective communication is necessary to be practiced by both the patient and the professionals. It saves time, money and energy. When a health professional knows that he/she can communicate well, it gives him the confidence on practice and his ability to help the patient and it also makes the patient to trust the doctors and carers. A survey conducted by Thorpe and Loo in the year 2003 has shown that how a supervisor behaves with the nurses matters a lot as it affects their behavior in turn and also decides the job satisfaction level of the nurses. Nurses are extremely important part of the organizations as they are the representative of care, understanding and love. If the nurses are not satisfied with the job, their communication with the patients can turn negative and this can hamper the performance of the organization. People who are happy and satisfied find it easier to spread happiness and care. However, people who are dissatisfied with their boss or the job find it difficult to give their hundred percent in the job(Athena du Pre, 2004, p13). Importance of communication in prevention: Larry Sanders was very right when he said, “our customers routinely bare their bodies, as well as their souls, within our organizations. I can think of no other enterprise in our society where so much is placed in the hands of others” (Athena du Pre, 2004, p16). Larry goes further and says that the health care professionals have to respond to patient’s faith by displaying personal commitment through extraordinary care, integrity, ethical behavior and morality each and everyday. The effective communication can also help to prevent the diseases and re-occurrence of the problem. It has been studied that the programs designed to prevent the diseases are more reasonable than treating the disease as they cost less and also help the people suffering from ill health to maintain the good health after they recover. As the old saying goes, “prevention is better than cure.” Prevention is possible only when there is open and trustworthy relationship between the person who is suffering from ill health and people who care for them. Prevention is possible only when there is change in the people’s lifestyle, their attitudes, their perceptions and their habits. To enter all these domains of life, the health care professionals have to gain trust and confidence of the people who are under their care and only then will they reveal their personal habits and opinions to the carers. Hence, health communication not only helps the treatment but also helps in preventing the problem from occurring again by treating it from the roots(Athena du Pre, 2004, p18). Importance of understanding cultural influence: The modern world has given opportunities to people to travel distant land for better opportunities. United States of America, being a land of opportunity, is a destination for people from different countries to come and settle down. According to Voelker (1995) in fifty years, majority of the population of the U.S. will be made by people coming from Hispanic, Asian and Afro-American ethnic background. They will still have low-income jobs and hence the population won’t be able to afford the costly health care treatments. At the same time, these people are not aware of the health related care and hence it becomes important for the organizations and media to communicate the right information to the people rather than glamorizing things and presenting it in front of people. Because of the increase in population of the people from different ethnic backgrounds the health care professionals will find themselves dealing with the people who have different cultural beliefs, needs, knowledge and communication patterns. Hence it becomes extremely important for the professional to learn the difference in the body language, intercultural communication and understand the beliefs that people from different culture have related to health matters. This helps not only the treatment but also enhances the communication and hence smoothens the relationship(Athena du Pre, 2004, p21) People from health care industry have many challenges to face. Apart from maintaining the health of the people who are unhealthy, they have the challenges of keeping them updated with new technology, maintaining the cost of the health care, maintaining their own psychological and physical health in spite of going through so much stress and to communicate successfully with the people who come to them to get healed. These professionals demands can play a havoc with the life of a person and communication is the only method that can help the people from health industry to maintain their balance and happiness in life(Athena du Pre, 2004, p22). Industrialization has put a great pressure on the medical world and has increased its demand. Where health care has become efficient and fast, the diseases are increasing due to increase in population, epidemic, unawareness, unhealthy surroundings, addictions, depression and lack of hygienic practices. Today, there is a great need of efficient and honest health care professionals than any other time due to the enormous demand(Athena du Pre, 2004, p35). Studies have revealed that people who come from low income backgrounds and socially underprivileged background are more at risk of losing their health as they suffer from depression, lack of healthy and nutritious diet, unawareness of healthy lifestyle, stress from social discriminations, lack of hope for the future and belief that the people are not willing to help them. This make them avoid the quality care and also reduce their chances of coping with the disease. Hence communication is the only way where they can be nurtured and reassured about the health and support for their health and future life. This not only heals them of the physical health but also at the spiritual and emotional level(Athena du Pre, 2004, p44). Ferguson (1997) has observed that people who provide help and support to people recovering from illness feel sense of worth and personal strength themselves as they think they have done a selfless act. People suffering from disease suddenly find themselves alone and helpless. Somewhere inside their heart and mind, they feel that they are not going to live and start fearing worsening of condition. This creates tension, stress and decrease in coping ability. According to Tardy(1994), coping is the method where a person changes what can be changed and accepts the condition that cannot be changed. Acceptance is an psychological as well as emotional process. It is easier when you have your loved ones and friends to support you and be there for you showing their care and support no matter how you are physically(Athena du Pre, 2004, p173). The situations that lead to crisis are those where the person completely loses the faith in himself and is so scared of the situation that he/she does not want to deal with it at all(Athena du Pre, 2004, p175). Being supportive listener is important in such cases. Barnt Burleson has given the techniques for that: (Athena du Pre, 2004, p178) 1. Focusing on the person who is telling you something without the preconceived notions and thoughts make communication clear and makes us to understand them better. 2. Resist the urge of labeling the people and judging them according to their ethnic background. Treating every person as a human being rather than looking at him as a representative of a certain group helps to avoid discrimination and also judgmental attitude. 3. Focusing on the emotional aspect of a person helps to start the healing from inside rather than just healing the body. 4. Sympathy statements work wonders when communicating with people. It makes the person feel that as the other understands how he is feeling, he will take care of him properly. 5. Summarizing what others are saying gives a confidence to the patient that he is listened to. When you know that what you are saying is heard, you get confidence and hence the people who come to the doctors become open and relaxed in his presence. This enhances the healing process and also the relationship. These are some of the important aspects of importance of communication in health care industry. Only an approach of humanity can help the carer and the people suffering from disease to form a productive and positive relationship. This heals not only the patient, but also the doctor. References Felicity, A. (2009). Health Psychology North Ryde, N.S.W. : McGraw-Hill Australia Athena du Pre, (2004) Communicating About Health, The McGraw Hill Companies Chopra, Deepak. (2000). Perfect Weight London, Rider. Read More