Teaching senior nurses how to teach communication skills in oncology

Many nurses acknowledge that their nursing practice is hampered by inadequa te teaching about communication skills during their nursing education. Inef fective communication has negative effects on patient care and causes stres s when nurses interact with each other, with medical colleagues, with patie nts and their relatives. Many senior nurses teach junior staff about commun ication and feel uncertain about their competence to do so despite recognit ion of its importance. This article reports data from a training initiative endorsed by the Royal College of Nursing in the United Kingdom (UK) aimed at helping senior nurse s to identify their personal strengths and weaknesses when communicating, l earn new teaching methods and encourage! new teaching initiatives. A reside ntial 2-day course, based on learner-centered methods was employed. One hun dred and twenty nine nurses from UK cancer centers worked on personal commu nication problems via group discussions, video demonstrations, small group teaching exercises and role-plays with professional actors. Post-course, pa rticipants reported significantly greater confidence in handling 14 common communication problem areas in cancer ((p < .0001) and in 8 different areas of teaching. Participants were very enthusiastic about the course overall and especially valued the training approach and teaching materials provided . Three months post-course 91% reported changing their own teaching practic e and 85% had initiated new communication skills teaching.