Communication and Consultation with Young People Module for Nurses

This course is split into five sessions:

• Session 1 covers some of the basic principles of communication skills that are important when dealing with patients of any age, but are particularly relevant to young people who are experiencing changes in their appearance, the way they think, or their relationships with parents and friends. It focuses on the need to adapt communication to fit with the language and cognitive skills of the young person, which will change as they go through adolescence.
• Session 2 - Young people, parents, and health professionals each enter any health consultation with their own agenda and preconceived ideas. These will have an impact on the communication that subsequently takes place. In this session we describe some of the attitudes, emotions and issues that may affect the consultation and suggest ways by which it is possible to influence these in order to achieve a more positive outcome.
• Session 3 - Young people sometimes have health problems that they perceive as embarrassing or sensitive. This session describes some steps that health professionals can take to encourage young people to share information about such problems.
• Session 4 explores some of the problems that young people experience when health professionals attempt to provide them with information, and suggests some ways of improving communication and explanation.
• Session 5 discusses the implications of empowering young people to take decisions about their own health care and how this may have an impact on how well professional health care advice is followed. The learner will be introduced to what aspects of treatment influence and motivate adherence to prescribed treatment regimens and will have an opportunity to assess practical approaches to help address ambivalence in order to influence behaviour change. This includes considering how to make conversations effective and helpful, and identify key factors that are important during conversations with young people.

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eIntegrity programmes are developed by NHS Health Education England’s e-Learning for Healthcare programme (HEE e-LfH). 

The programmes are high quality self-directed learning programmes.  They are designed to support training and CPD and are excellent resources alongside other traditional teaching methodologies.  They have been developed by the UK NHS for use in the NHS.  However, many of the programmes have international relevance, particularly the specialty training programmes which are often mapped to UK specialty training curricula.

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