Communicating Bad News: Using Role-Play to Teach Nursing Students

Abstract

Receiving bad news can have a profound impact on a patient's physical, psychological and social well-being. Therefore, communication of bad news is an essential skill required for health professionals. A good interpersonal relationship based on trust, empathy, and respect can help the psychological adjustment to end-of-life losses. This study presents a simulation-based learning experience designed to teach communication skills to nursing students who care for palliative patients and their family members. The authors suggest adopting Gibbs’ reflective cycle during structured debriefing that enables the students to move logically through the reflective process. A student-centered learning approach can promote responsibility and success in achieving the expected learning outcomes.

Master of nursing specialist experiences of an internship through the use of written reflections: A qualitative research study

“…In diary writing, the study adopted the structure of Gibbs’s reflective cycle, which consists of six modules: reflection, description, feeling, evaluation, analysis, conclusion, and action plan [ 2 , 15 ]. This model was chosen because of the successful application of the Gibbs Reflection Cycle to reflection in the nursing profession [ 16 ], which not only allowed participants to write a reflection diary step by step but also allowed them to take into account their feelings about clinical events [ 2 , [15] , [16] , [17] ].…”

“…It is recommended that participants consider their feelings during the six stages of Gibbs’s framework, such as reflection, description, feeling, evaluation, analysis, conclusion, and action plan [ 2 , 15 ]. The Gibbs’s reflective cycle provides a structured approach that has been successfully applied to nursing majors and nursing students, enabling students to logically reflect on clinical events [ 16 , 17 ]. Structured templates, however, may compromise the quality and authenticity of the data collected.…”

“…Based on Gibbs’s reflective cycle, reflective practice has been successfully performed in some countries, such as Japan’s public health graduate and undergraduate students [ 19 , 20 ] and nursing staff in China [ 21 ]. The study found that MNS in China must have the ability to enhance personal reflection and professional ability [ 7 , 8 ], and Gibb’s reflective cycle can be used as a theoretical framework for beginning writers to reflect on their behavior, to improve their performance [ 16 , 17 ]. According to researchers [ 21 ] in China, using Gibbs’s reflective cycle can improve nurses' ability to engage in clinical nursing thinking when dealing with adverse events, especially by helping nurse practitioners who work for 0.5–1 year gain a more comprehensive understanding of adverse events.…”

Nursing students’ views of the impact of geriatric role-play workshops on professional competencies: survey

“…Experiential learning methods enable the acquisition and consolidation of knowledge and a variety of skills that prepare students for a real clinical environment in a simulated one [ 6 , 13 ], thus enabling the transfer of knowledge from lecture halls and special nursing classrooms to the clinical environment [ 14 ]. In the field of medicine and nursing, for example, communication skills training plays a very important role in undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing education [ 15 , 16 ]. Rowles and Brighan [ 17 ] believe that role-playing is particularly suitable for adult participants, as it is linked to everyday life, and active participation further enhances decision-making skills.…”

“Power of words”: impact, concerns and applications of nonviolent communication training

“…It also alludes to offering avenues for emotional recognition, holistic growth and expression of all stakeholders and also expressions of care and concern in organisational communication (Pless et al , 2017). Communication is considered crucial for building relationships and trust (Laranjeira et al , 2021) that, in turn, foster a culture of openness and connectedness. Scholars have recommended studying organisational communication as a process to embed with humanisation principles (Melé, 2016).…”