Introduction
As a people-oriented profession, dentistry requires the development of solid communication skills. Such abilities are indispensable to patient care to serve specific aims, including management of patients’ primary complaints, triage emergencies, setting a shared objective during treatment planning, and insurance of informed consent. Strong interpersonal communication abilities can enhance patients’ satisfaction and treatment outcomes in the medical field. Applying successful communication principles and strategies strengthens clinical activities such as conflict management, cultural sensitivity, and teamwork.
Communication in Dentistry
Disagreements may impair stability and affect team effectiveness and productive outcomes negatively. Efficient conflict management directly depends on interpersonal communication skills. Conflict may emerge from the differences in opinion, values, and beliefs between medical personnel and patients. Some conflicts occur on the level of inner-corporational relationships. Such conflicts may be connected to the workload distribution, the quality of the communication within teams, or specific medical procedures. Disputes of this nature negatively impact the workers’ performance and motivation. Controlling these aspects is vital to ensure the high quality of the caretaker’s work which establishes the general quality of patient care.
Ineffective conflict management can often result in staff stress, illness, decreased work satisfaction, and distrust. Conflict management is centered on fostering progress and cooperation. Interpersonal communication theoretical inquiries offer preventative measures to avoid the occurrence of various communicational issues. One of the essential principles of establishing good communication is focused on comprehension. It is perceived as a natural and beneficial aspect of group discussions. Assertiveness, anger control, conflict resolution, teamwork, and effective communication are the five skills centered on helping reduce and manage various conflicts.
Assertiveness ensures that the message is delivered clearly and succinctly. Patients gain from assertiveness through discussing their illness condition and treatment opportunities with clinicians. Increasing the patients’ awareness of their health conditions reduces misunderstanding. Clinicians should describe what the other person has stated in their own words to encourage clarity and give patients the chance to act in the same manner (Hong et al., 2020). Such an approach ensures the efficient collaboration required in the processes of diagnosis and treatment. The teach-back approach is a term used to describe this interactive communication loop. The approach is recognized as a crucial patient safety strategy because, when applied correctly, it enhances communication accuracy and health outcomes (Hong et al., 2020). This method is considered the best practice communication strategy involving the patient in the conversation.
One of the vital areas which should be elaborated on within the scope of conflict management is anger control. Positive relationships between coworkers, patients, and healthcare providers depend on effective conflict management. It is vital to replace negative emotions with good ones to create a supportive environment in a team setting (DeVito, 2019). When discussing treatment options with patients, it is vital to encourage good behavior and recognize any advancements in the person’s dental hygiene or self-care regimen.
Interpersonal communication emphasizes cooperation as the best, most efficient conflict management approach. Healthcare providers should focus on finding the optimal solution to balancing the needs of clinics and patients. Interpersonal communication recommends awareness improvement, participation, and comprehension to advance equality and enhance dispute resolution (DeVito, 2019). Collaboration exercises promote provider accountability to assist in managing emotions correctly. Separating the individual from the issue highlights the importance of shared values and interests and establishing shared goals.
Clinicians must explain to patients their present illness state, future preventative plans, therapy recommendations, and the prognosis following therapy. Increasing patients’ awareness provides them with the information to avoid treatment uncertainty. As with any patient-centered care, the acquisition of informed consent involves some information exchanges that provide the potential for misunderstanding (Burkert et al., 2021). Professionals in the field of oral health must spend time cultivating and maintaining interpersonal communication skills since professionalism demands efficient communication.
A frequent myth in the sphere of conflict management is that communication skills cannot be learned or improved by practice and training since they are intrinsic. Numerous studies have demonstrated that communication effectiveness increases when communication training is included in health care education (Medendorp et al., 2021). These studies also linked more communication instruction to higher degrees of self-assurance while speaking with patients (Medendorp et al., 2021). Higher patient satisfaction levels resulted from this approach’s favorable impact on the patient’s confidence in the doctor. Maintaining relationships with patients requires effective communication oriented toward improving healthcare services’ quality. Patients appreciate healthcare professionals more when they respect patients’ needs and explain possible treatment options (Medendorp et al., 2021). Communication loses its efficacy without practice and special training. Since interpersonal skills have been associated with higher patient satisfaction, provider-patient trust, better health outcomes, and patient compliance, oral health practitioners should include such training in corporational education.
Conclusion
Therefore, personal interaction is crucial for teamwork and patient care. An interpersonal connection that values common objectives is forged when oral health specialists are sensitive to the particular circumstances of individuals. Efficient communication interactions have a favorable impact on patient satisfaction and treatment outcomes. Based on this inquiry, it can be stated that interpersonal communication and quality assurance are related concepts. This compassionate and patient-centered method enhances patients’ health results and promotes patient accountability. Such positive results are gained by finding a compromise that benefits both patients and clinicians. The collaborative character of interpersonal communication fosters the progressive development and expansion of the practice. Interpersonal communication is critical to effective dental teams’ work since it results in higher patient retention rates by increasing the quality of services.
References
Burkert, V., Stoykova, M., & Semerdjieva, M. (2021). Communication skills teaching methods in dental education – a Review. Folia Medica, 63(1), 30–34.
Hong, Y.-R., Jo, A., Cardel, M., Huo, J., & Mainous, A. G. (2020). Patient-provider communication with teach-back, patient-centered diabetes care, and diabetes care education. Patient Education and Counseling, 103(12), 2443–2450.
DeVito, J. A. (2019). The interpersonal communication book. Instructor, 1, 18.
Medendorp, N. M., van den Heuvel, L. M., Han, P. K. J., Hillen, M. A., & Smets, E. M. A. (2021). Communication skills training for healthcare professionals in providing genetic counseling: A scoping literature review. Patient Education and Counseling, 104(1), 20–32.