Educating sonographers in attributes of “breaking bad news” to foster positive emotional well-being

Abstract

Although physicians have the primary role of communicating bad news to patients, emergency care personnel, nurses, midwives, and sonographers encounter this situation increasingly in their routine work. There is an inherent expectation that delivering bad news is intuitive and can be developed with experience. Contrary to the belief, there is mounting evidence to suggest that difficult communication is a complex skill, which can be taught. Insufficient or no training is a significant barrier in effective communication and can lead to burnout. The study aimed to identify common barriers of breaking bad news and to determine attributes to overcome them, in allied health, nursing, and sonography literature. A narrative literature review was undertaken. Keywords search of MEDLINE database and manual keyword search of articles published in English was performed. Review methods were data extraction and comparative analysis of 12 published articles. Descriptive analysis of 12 articles revealed three themes of interest: (1) impact of breaking bad news on staff, (2) perceived difficulties/barriers for breaking bad news, and (3) developing attributes that help in communicating bad news. Articles analysed suggest that communicating bad news is a complex skill and indicates an adequate training to empower the informer and to offer better patient care.