Aspects of verbal communication between nurses and visually impaired people

Abstract

The communication process consists of verbal and non-verbal forms. The aims of the study were to analyze verbal communication between nurses and blind diabetic patients using Roman Jakobson’s theory and to draw the sender’s profile in view of the conative, emotive, referential functions, contact and code. It was a quantitative survey carried out in 2005. The participants were blind people, companions and nurses. The data collection included five nursing consultations, which were recorded. The scenes were analyzed every 15 seconds and from those resulted 1131 verbal interactions. The nurse was the sender in 57.8% and the blind person in 20% of the interactions. In the vocative interactions, the action mode prevailed (66.2%). Information contents mainly referred to orientations (85.4%), using hearing (53%), and using sight (40.6%). Communication about personal matters prevailed among blind senders (42%), and communication about treatment among nurses (59.8%). The emotive functions were: solidarity, satisfaction, tranquility and empathy. Nurses need to develop verbal communication abilities.