Examining Health Communication among Physicians and Nurses in Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU)

Abstract

Background: The primary purpose of this study was to determine the best practices for effective communication among healthcare professionals in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) setting. Through the use of focus groups among the nursing staff and interviews with physicians, researchers gained insight into the current communication practices used in the NICU. Furthermore, several suggestions were made by both the nursing staff and the physicians that can be applied in the future to improve health communication. With this information, this study can provide valid evidence of what methods of communication work and also certain ways to improve the areas that need improvement. A thorough literature review was conducted to assess the current studies regarding health communication in various medical environments. The review was subdivided into various sections that include previous NICU interventions, and health communication among physicians and nurses. Although the primary focus of this study is health communication between physicians and nurses, it is important to also examine the communication methods between the medical providers and the parents in the NICU. The children admitted to the NICU of hospitals are high risk patients and thus the health information must be properly transferred between the parents, physicians and nurses in order to administer the best possible care for the children. Methods: Two focus groups with parents, 2 focus groups with nurses, and 3 individual interviews with 3 physicians were conducted to recognize gaps and to understand their current strategies used for effective health communication between nurses and providers, among nurses, among physicians, and between providers and parents. Each participant was asked to fill out a demographic survey that provided basic information about the participants (APPENDIX 6). A table will be created with the demographic information for the nurses and physicians. Trained moderators guided the discussion using a set of questions. The recordings of the discussion were transcribed verbatim by the online service Transcribeme.com. The transcripts were analyzed using grounded theory techniques. The focus group questions concentrated on how to effectively communicate with parents, nurses, and physicians. It was important to gain insight on the effectiveness of these current strategies used because based on these results, a viable communication tool will be developed for future use by nurses and physicians within a NICU to address the findings from this pilot study.