Overview
In the contemporary society, mental health care is an essential aspect of every culture. In a multicultural society, the prejudices, discrimination, radical belief and fundamental thinking against another culture are prevalent. This discrimination not merely affects the individual on the personal level but also interfere with professional responsibilities. However, it has observed by the mental health practitioners treat the psychological patients in the discriminatory atmosphere. Mental health care practitioner provides their best facilities to the team that people receive less health care particularly appropriate health care that create the alarming situation to recover from psychological disorders. It has also reported in some epidemiology reports that lack of effective communication between the practitioner and the patient interfere in getting good services. The ineffective communication is the critical hindrance of patient hesitation to discuss the disorder or symptoms and inability to understand the practitioner’s recommendation. Therefore, it is imperative to critically evaluate the barriers to effective communication in mental health care settings to eradicate the factors.Advantages of Effective Communication
Communication refers to one of the best foundations for exchanging information that plays a significant role in health care services. The best mental health care depends on the effective communication, between the health care practitioners and the patients. Some studies support the advantage of effective communication in positive mental health outcomes for patients. The better communication among the healthcare practitioners and patient build-up healthy relationship that improves patient satisfaction, adherence to recommendations, and produces positive health outcomes. The patient feels comfortable while describing the nature and symptoms of illness, avoid hesitation to make an appointment and take the initiative to discuss risks and the protective factor of illness. In the contemporary health, care practices the healthcare professionals believe is patient-centred communication. The patient-centred communication often called clinician-patient interactions by providing the best service to a patient including organisational signage, education materials and patient forms.Barriers in Effective Communication
The diversities in cultural and ethnic compositions create prejudice, fundamental thinking and discrimination among people that limit the effective communication in mental health care setting. The people develop some stigma and beliefs towards other and interpret all the people, and situation according to personal biases, personal values, beliefs, and behaviours. This schema and belief developed in the early childhood and became stronger in later life. The findings suggested that African American patients reported the racial discrimination in health care practices by their consultant as compared to White patients. Another study indicated that the due to the language barrier the patient with limited English proficiency reported that they receive the least attention from their practitioner as compared to patients with proficient English.
Similarly, the religion is another controversial topic for the different culture. People show the sentimental inclination towards their religion and unusual intense reactions to support their religion. In mental health care practice, the discrimination based on religion may observe at high scales, such as the Christian, associate terrorism and another manmade environmental disaster with muslins. On the other hand, Muslims have some rigid beliefs towards Christianity and avoid having the meal with them. These kinds of mutual hatred and discrepancies interfere in professional practices. Through effective communication, these barriers can be controlled.
Types of Effective Communication
The effective communication not merely based on a verbal exchange of words but also comprised of non-verbal cues such as facial expression, posture, gesture, eye contact and proximity. The verbal communication covers the delivery of information regarding clear speech, selection of appropriate specifically age-appropriate language, pace, pitch and tone, and active listening skills. The verbal communication is essential in educating people about the nature, level, risk and protective factor of the diseases. The barriers like language, ethnic and racial disparities should be ignored during communication with the patient. The voice tone, pitch and pace should be significantly soft and polite while delivering information. The patient should feel relax and comfortable while discussing his problems and should have equal collaboration with the practitioner.
Verbal Communication
Verbal communication not merely enough to establish a healthy relationship also plays a significant role in delivering information. The non-verbal communication is also a vital part of communication as it works for those patients who belong to minorities or uses another language To educated or guide them about primary health care practices through body movement, facial expression and gestures help them to get the benefit of it. According to study, the practitioner-patient interaction establishes through both non-verbal and verbal channels, and for in-depth understanding focus on nonverbal cues. What has been said not merely crucial in some of the situations, but how it had told signified the nature of a relationship. For example, emotion express the inner state and comfort level of both the practitioner and the patient, the practitioner should recognise these emotional signals and adjust their conversation accordingly to demonstrate empathy.Non-verbal communication
The non-verbal cues have some categories of Para-verbal cues, and these cues distinguish from nonverbal regarding intensity, frequency and duration. Nonverbal behaviour consists of body movement and actions such as gesturing, facial expressions and body posture. Para-verbal behaviour refers to implicit aspects such as rate, duration, errors and pauses. Eye mutual gaze and eye contact were recurrently studied regarding patient-centred interaction, and it has been observing that rapport, psychological distress, cognitive and physical functioning impact patient-centeredness. The proximity and body angle of a physician has been associated with healthcare outcomes. The gesture, posture, and facial expression of the physician also positively and negatively affect the patient. A study indicates that a kind smile on the therapist's face encourages a patient to addresses their issues in a relaxed mode. Literature also suggested that the empathetic feeling of a practitioner towards a patient problem also increase the likeliness of establishing a healthy relationship among both of them, which as a result develop a collaborative relationship to solve the problems. The practitioner active listening skill is also the necessary component of effective communication.In short, effective communications are the vital part of a culturally safe mental health care environment. The above recommendation about health literacy and communication are useful, but there is a need to identify more educational methods and resources to promote health literacy and effective communication in society.