Aspects of verbal communication between nurses and visually impaired people

The communication process consists of verbal and non-verbal forms, which a sender uses to share information. Verbal communication refers to spoken and written communication. Sounds and words are used to communicate, and when words are used, communication depends on a shared language.

Restricting verbal communication they are six fundamental elements, essential for a communication act to take place, which are: sender, addressee, context, message, contact, and code. The SENDER sends a MESSAGE to the ADDRESSEE. The ADDRESSEE receives the message. To be effective, the message requires a CONTEXT which it refers to, it needs to be understandable to the addressee, and verbal or susceptible to verbalization; a CODE totally or partially held in common by sender and addressee (or, in other words, to the coder and the decoder of the message); and finally, a CONTACT, that is, a physical channel and a psychological connection between the sender and the addressee, which will enable them to start and continue communicating.

Other functions should be observed: referential, emotive, and conative. The referential function is related to someone or something that is being talked about. It can be called the context of the message, as mentioned before. It is in this function that information is exchanged. The emotive or expressive function, centered on the sender, aims at a direct expression of the speaker’s attitude in relation to the subject spoken about. It tends to arouse the impression of a certain true or simulated emotion. The purely emotional layer is represented by interjections, which different from referential language procedures by sound configuration (peculiar sound sequences or even uncommon sounds). The emotive function evidenced by interjections, colors verbal manifestations. The conative function guides the addressee and has its purest grammatical expression in the imperative and the vocative, which are syntactically, morphologically and frequently even phonologically distant from other nominal and verbal categories. Imperative sentences are fundamentally different from declarative sentences, as the former cannot be submitted to a proof of truth, whereas the latter can.

The problem of communicating with blind people is observed during nurses’ professional activities. Following their undergraduate training, they are not prepared for the specific needs of this impairment. Despite the existence of studies about blindness, there still exists a knowledge gap about its relation with the communication process. It should be emphasized that the blind experience a sensory barrier (the impaired vision channel), which may affect the information received during nursing care delivery to patients. Nurses need to know and improve studies about verbal and non-verbal communication theories; to fit it use for assisted users; to know and study blind person’s behavior aiming decode the signs emitted for her. They should be get ability to practice therapeutic communication and make their activities work in a way that the necessities don’t become barriers to the communication.

This study is justified by the fact that nurses need to use verbal communication and they should also be aware that, when nurses communicate with blind people, it is important to consider these clients’ peculiarities. Thus, this study aimed to analyze verbal communication between nurses and blind diabetes patients in the light of verbal communication theory and to draw the sender’s profile in view of the conative, emotive, and referential functions, contact and code.

Slovníček

written communication – písemná komunikace
shared language – společný jazyk
fundamental elements – základní prvky
partially – částečně
finally – nakonec, konečně
connection – spojení
to enable – umožnit
sender – odesílatel
attitude – postoj
uncommon – nezvyklý
the purest – nejčistší
distant – vzdálený
whereas – zatímco
blind – nevidomý
knowledge – znalost
to emphasize – zdůrazdnit
to improve – zdokonalovat se
behavior – chování
justified – odůvodněný
peculiarities – zvláštnosti

Source: COSTA K. N. DE F. M., PAGLIUCA L. M. F., ALMEIDA P. C. DE et al. Aspects of verbal communication between nurses and visually im­paired people. Rev Rene 2009; 10(2): 29–36. doi: 10.15253/2175-6783.2009000200003.

 

 

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