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Test Your Knowledge of Effective Health Communication
1. Healthcare providers who most effectively deliver preventive interventions demonstrate which of the following during patient interaction?
Health care professionals who effectively deliver prevention interventions to patients demonstrate the following attributes:1
- Expertise and knowledge in health and prevention
- Understanding of learning/behavior change theories and good communication
- Relationship-building skills
- Interviewing and role-modeling skills
- Assessment for readiness to change behaviors
- Attention to the patient’s attitudes and beliefs
- Personal attributes of confidence and flexibility
Additionally, the five Cs of communication in healthcare include:2
- Caring: Be kind and friendly, treat patients with respect, encourage questions, and be a good listener.
- Customized: Support individual patient’s communication needs and preferences.
- Clear communication: Introduce and summarize, organize information, take your time, give action steps, use plain language, use teach-back, and use examples and/or stories.
- Concise communication: Limit the information you provide at each visit.
- Correct: Health information provided should be accurate and up-to-date using reliable resources.
1. Thawer, S. (2023). Effective Health Communication. In L. D. Boyd & L. F. Mallonee, Wilkins’ Clinical Practice of Dental Hygiene (14th ed., pp. 35-46). Jones & Bartlett.
2. The 5 Cs of Communication in Healthcare. (n.d.). Institute of Healthcare Advancement. https://www.healthliteracysolutions.org/blogs/iha-staff1/2023/06/12/the-5-cs-of-communication-in-healthcare
2. Using “plain language” in verbal and written health communication can improve patients’ understanding of and response to health messages.
Using “plain language” in both verbal and written health communication can improve patients’ understanding, which also improves compliance. Plain language does not “dumb down” or “talk down” to the patient. Rather, it clarifies the information in a way that is clear and to the point, using language the patient understands.1
Effective communication is a universal precaution for health literacy. Universal precautions for health literacy include simplifying communication and confirming understanding. Just as we use universal precautions for infection control, we also should implement universal precautions for health literacy since we cannot know who is challenged by health information.2
1. Thawer, S. (2023). Effective Health Communication In Thawer, S. (Eds.) Wilkins’ Clinical Practice of Dental Hygiene (14th ed., pp.36). Jones & Bartlett.
2. Health Literacy Universal Precautions Toolkit, 3rd Edition. (2024, February). Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. https://www.ahrq.gov/health-literacy/improve/precautions/intro.html
3. It is common for the receiver to understand every health message delivered by a source with complete accuracy. Emotional factors such as fear rarely cause distraction, which leads to a barrier to effective health communication.
Health messaging is rarely delivered and well understood by the receiver of the message. There are multiple barriers to effective health communication, including but not limited to psychological barriers, information overload, poor communication skills, and lack of interest.1
The seven most common communication barriers include:2
- Use of medical terminology
- Language differences
- Cultural differences
- Disabilities and other challenges
- Low health literacy
- Complexity of health topics
- Lack of time
1. Thawer, S. (2023). Effective Health Communication. In L. D. Boyd & L. F. Mallonee, Wilkins’ Clinical Practice of Dental Hygiene (14th ed., pp. 35-46). Jones & Bartlett.
2. 7 Barriers to Effective Communication in Healthcare. (n.d.). Institute of Healthcare Advancement. https://www.healthliteracysolutions.org/blogs/iha-staff1/2023/07/19/7-barriers-to-effective-communication-in-healthcar
4. Recommendations made by a health care professional are more likely to be effective if the patient perceives the information as _____.
Recommendations by health care professionals are most often effective when the patient perceives the information to be:
- Evidence-based, accurate, balanced, and reliable
- Consistent with information from other sources
- Culturally and linguistically appropriate
- Delivered in an easily understood and accessible way
- Provided when the patient is most ready to receive it
- Repeated and reinforced over time
Thawer, S. (2023). Effective Health Communication. In L. D. Boyd & L. F. Mallonee, Wilkins’ Clinical Practice of Dental Hygiene (14th ed., pp. 35-46). Jones & Bartlett.
5. Health information is often received from a variety of sources, some of which may be biased, incomplete, or conflicting.
Sources of health information include mainstream media, educational institutes, family and friends, social media, and health care professionals. Some sources are biased and often report conflicting or incomplete information that can be fear-inducing and counterproductive to effective health communications.1
According to the U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on Building a Healthy Information Environment, “features built into technology platforms have contributed to the spread of misinformation. For example, social media platforms incentivize people to share content to get likes, comments, and other positive signals of engagement.”2
These features further sow discord and confuse patients about the validity of health information.
1. Thawer, S. (2023). Effective Health Communication. In L. D. Boyd & L. F. Mallonee, Wilkins’ Clinical Practice of Dental Hygiene (14th ed., pp. 35-46). Jones & Bartlett.
2. Confronting Health Misinformation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on Building a Healthy Information Environment. (2021). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-misinformation-advisory.pdf
6. Physiological barriers, including the inability to hear, see, touch, or vocalize as required to communicate, can make health communication difficult. However, cultural barriers, including perceptions related to differences in gender, age, language, socioeconomic class, or ethnic background, do not pose a problem with effective health communication.
Physiological barriers, as well as cultural barriers, can make effective health communication difficult. Therefore, it is important to understand cultural variations and effective methods to communicate with patients with a physiological barrier.
Thawer, S. (2023). Effective Health Communication. In L. D. Boyd & L. F. Mallonee, Wilkins’ Clinical Practice of Dental Hygiene (14th ed., pp. 35-46). Jones & Bartlett.
7. Health care professionals are responsible for keeping up-to-date on internet sources of information to respond to questions patients may bring to a health education discussion.
Patients are often inundated with web-based health information. It is imperative that health care professionals, including dental hygienists, stay up-to-date on web-based sources of information as well as the correct information to provide to patients that have questions.1
According to the American Dental Association’s Code of Professional Conduct, “All dentists have the obligation of keeping their knowledge and skills current.” This falls under the principle of nonmaleficence (“do no harm”).2
Well-informed dental hygienists can assist patients in evaluating the reliability and credibility of websites, and they can also suggest high-quality resources for those seeking further information.1
1. Thawer, S. (2023). Effective Health Communication. In L. D. Boyd & L. F. Mallonee, Wilkins’ Clinical Practice of Dental Hygiene (14th ed., pp. 35-46). Jones & Bartlett.
2. Principles of Ethics and Code of Professional Conduct. (2023, March). American Dental Association. https://www.ada.org/-/media/project/ada-organization/ada/ada-org/files/about/ada_code_of_ethics.pdf
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