Communication Barriers Perceived by Older Patients and Nurses

In Korea a communication-barrier questionnaire was developed to examine patient, nurse, and the environmental factors that can affect the communication between nurses and the elderly. They chose 100 elderly patients that had to be within the following criteria:

• >60 years of age
• Hospitalized for greater then 2 days
• Alert and orientated
• Able to communicate verbally
• No medical history of dementia (Park, E., Song, M., 2005).
  

They had also chosen 136 nurses to complete the questionairre. The nurses and the patients were recruited from the same hospital units. After completing this 50-item communication barrier questionnaire, they determined that the nurses had scored higher on patient-related communication barriers. The patients believed, that the communication barrier should be more focused on nurse-related rather then patient related. In order for nurses to achieve a more efficient communication barrier they need to be educated. Understanding the patients perception of communication barriers should be included in both basic and in-service nursing education. Patient-related communication barriers do not normally change, because it is the result of illness or aging. Effective nursing approaches such as: making sure the patient has the appropriate prostesis, should be adopted to compensate for patient-related barriers (Park, E., Song, M., 2005).