Lifestyle risk factor communication by nurses in general practice: Understanding the interactional elements

Abstract

Aim: This paper seeks to explore general practice nurses' perceptions of interactional factors supporting communication with patients about lifestyle risk. Design: Qualitative descriptive study embedded in a concurrent mixed methods design. Methods: Fifteen Australian general practice nurses were interviewed following video-recorded chronic disease management consultations Results: The theme of 'Interactional Factors' comprised of the subthemes 'Relational factors' and 'Patient factors'. Relational factors referred to communication techniques and methods supporting temporal continuity with patients about lifestyle risk. Patient factors included consumers' motivation, willingness, and readiness to prioritize lifestyle changes. Lack of awareness of the nurses' role was perceived to have an impact on initiation of lifestyle risk conversations. Conclusion: Strategies optimizing continuity of nursing care enhance the capacity for lifestyle risk reduction conversations with patients. Ongoing training in patient-centred communication and increasing patients' awareness of general practice nurses' roles would also better support these discussions. Impact: This research identifies ways the general practice nurses' role in supporting lifestyle risk reduction can be improved. Optimizing the general practice nurses' role in lifestyle risk communication can enhance the behaviour change and chronic disease management. K E Y W O R D S counselling, general practice, interactions, lifestyle, nursing, patient relations, primary care, qualitative descriptive, thematic analysis

General practice nurses’ communication strategies for lifestyle risk reduction: A content analysis

“…The focus of this paper is a qualitative analysis of verbatim transcriptions of a subset of these video‐recorded consultations. Semi‐structured interviews with GPNs were also conducted following these consultations and their findings are reported elsewhere (James, McInnes, Halcomb, & Desborough, 2020).…”

Nonverbal communication between registered nurses and patients during chronic disease management consultations: Observations from general practice

“…Person‐centred therapeutic relationships and positive rapport are key to effective lifestyle risk communication that leads to behaviour modification (James et al, 2020). Nonverbal communication is an important component of building these relationships (D'Agostino & Bylund, 2014; Duggan & Parrott, 2001).…”

“…Interaction between the nurse and computer commonly seen in general practice adds complexity to the GPN–patient relationship (James et al, 2020). While decreases in nurse–computer eye contact time during the consultation were not significant, previous research indicates that clinicians perceive computer use as having a negative impact on patient‐centred communication (Sobral, Rosenbaum, & Figueiredo‐Braga, 2015).…”

“…Previous nursing research on nonverbal communication has been conducted in settings such as mental health, cardiology, critical, palliative and disability care (Chambers, 2003; de Rezende et al., 2015; Kozłowska & Doboszynska, 2012; Pounds, 2010; Varndell, Fry, & Elliott, 2017). Nonverbal communication is important for the direct and indirect outcomes of care such as patient disclosure, engagement, rapport, satisfaction and enhanced cognitive and physical function (Ambady et al, 2002; Duggan & Parrott, 2001; Robinson, 2006), attributes necessary for lifestyle risk communication (James, McInnes, Halcomb, & Desborough, 2020). However, the issue of nonverbal communication is largely absent in the primary care literature and in literature related to lifestyle risk conversations (James, Halcomb, et al, 2019).…”

“…This paper reports the quantitative analysis of the video observation data. Due to the volume of data collected in the larger data set of the project, other analyses, such as the interview findings, are reported elsewhere (James et al, 2020).…”