Communication skills training for nurses

Abstract

The Japanese government evaluated of the acts to keep the quality of medical care and to promote professionals'collaboration in the recent Revisions of Medical Fee, because of the restriction of the medical budget for super‐aging society. Thus, communication skill among health professionals in cancer care become more important. We conducted and published a study to assess the efficacy of Communication Skill Training (CST) for nurses in improving patient QOL after being informed of a cancer diagnosis (Fukui S et al, Cancer 2008; Fukui S et al, Psycho‐oncology 2010; Fukui S et al, J Cancer Edu 2010). Nurses who mainly provide cancer patient support at a cancer center were randomly assigned to either an experimental or a control group; patients were supported by either group of nurses. Nurses in experimental group participated the 2‐days CST program to acquire their communication skill (6 steps of communication skill SPIKES: S, setting up; P, perception; I, Invitation; K, Knowledge; E, Emotion; S, Summary). Patient selection criteria were: > age 18 years with gastric, colorectal, or breast cancer that was not in advanced stage. Intervention consisted of 3 1‐on‐1 nurses interviews (on the day of, 1 week after, and 1 month after diagnosis). Efficacy was shown to reduce patient psychologic distress and improve patient QOL and satisfaction for nurses at 3 time points (1 week, 1 month, and 3 months after diagnosis). In the Revision of Medical Fee on 2016, “Fee for nurse skill for cancer patient counseling” was newly‐established using the evidence of our study. In this symposium, considering this political background, I would like to present our study and suggest the importance of communication skills and collaborations in health professionals, especially in oncologists and nurses, aiming for providing high‐quality cancer care for patients.