Conscious communication to accompany effectively: protocol of 5 steps

Abstract

People with chronic and serious diseases, need to be heard, understood and answered at their own pace. Professionals need simple and efficient tools to have good communication with their patients, in the shortest possible time. The aim of this paper is to describe a systematic communication in five steps, protocol based on counselling and on the principles of bioethics, to facilitate the information skills, motivate therapeutic adherence, promote behavioral changes, deal with difficult situations and to have an authentic encounter with the patient and his family. It is concluded that without effective communication there is no encounter, and without encounter, the clinical relationship between professional and patient can become an exchange of empty words, of impositions of treatments, which the patient will hardly adequately comply with. Times change and participatory medicine is finding a more appropriate place in the clinical environment.