A paper describing and summarizing your nurse-patient relationship should be included in your plan to meet the objectives. The paper should describe your relationship with the patient and how it changed over time. The therapeutic communication techniques that were used and the rationale for selecting them should be included. Your process recordings should support your analysis of the relationship.

Organize your paper in any way that seems clear to you. You could begin with describing the setting, the client, and your reaction to the client. You could describe the patient’s behavior and your behavior toward the client. You could discuss what approaches by you were effective and which ones you would change and how you would change them. You could describe the communication techniques you used, nonverbal communication and phases of the nurse-patient relationship experienced. It is important to include your own feelings and how they affected the relationship.

Conclude your paper with your overall impression of this nurse-patient relationship. Include your perceptions of how both you and the client benefitted from the relationship and what you learned.

Be sure to check your spelling, punctuation, grammar and APA style before turning in the paper. Proofread the paper.

The narrative portion of the paper should be typed, no longer than five (5) pages, and written in APA style. At least three (3) references should be included.

The references should relate in some way to your patient’s diagnosis, the problems you addressed, interventions you used, communication in the nurse-patient relationship, or any aspect of the relationship. Examples of references about the nurse-patient relationship include the following:

Brown, S. J. (1994). Communication stategies used by an expert nurse. Clinical Nursing Research, 3 (1), 43-56.

Forchuk, C., & Brown, B. (1989). Establishing a nurse-client relationship. Journal of Psychosocial Nursing, 27 (2), 30-34.

Morse, J.M. (1992). Negotiating commitment and involvement in the nurse-patient relationship. In J.M. Morse (Ed.). Qualitative Health Research. Newbury Pk: CA: Sage.

You do not have to use any of these three specific articles.