It is a common occurrence that anxiety in clients experiencing a large amount of pain can reduce the effectiveness of the treatment required for the condition through a variety of factors; in which those factors are predominantely caused by the absence of proper communication skills. Thus, the application of the appropriate verbal and non-verbal forms of communication can positively contribute to the provision of effective professional health professional services. In this particular scenario that involves the treatment of an anxious patient, the most vital communication skills that must be applied by the health professional include showing empathy and the maintainance of the client's personal space.
SHOWING EMPATHY
Empathy …show more content…
This is due to the fact that showing empathy leads health professionals to concentrate on the sources causing the patient's anxiety6 (in this case – 'what factors associated with treatment could be initiating an anxious response in the patient?'), which then directs the physician to be aware of when and how to seek information about their patients' emotions (through the use of open questions), when silence from their part is required, and when to incoperate the utilisation of repitition7 – all of which are a result of social cues indicated by the patient's emotional state. This also leads to the decrease in anxiety levels in the …show more content…
That being said, the absence of the maintanence of personal space could result in the increase of the levels of anxiety in the client9. Peronal space is defined as “the area or territory surrounding an individual in which they feel a sense of security and control”10. This has been further confirmed in a recent study published in The Journal of Neuroscience, in which individuals with anxiety “reacted more strongly to stimuli 20cm from their face than subjects who got low scores on the anxiety test”11. Unfortunately, personal space must be sacrificed during a variety of scenarios in a healthcare environment (for example; physical examinations, which are carried out as a component of a very large (if not all) amount of treatments), which require the health professional to be closer than 20cm to the