Significance of Discourse and Speech Communities in Nursing

A discourse community is a collection of individuals that share established discussions which are known as elementary principles and suppositions and methods of interactions about those objectives. Discourse communities have particular objectives and they achieve them by communicating. They exist because of the interactions between people, the writing that they generate, and the beliefs that they have about the other members of the community. A discourse community consists of a set of common objectives, interaction, and communication among members, the capability of the provision of information as well as feedback, categories of communication, and a group of members that have similar levels of prowess in a particular subject. A speech community is a group of people that have the same linguistic norms and expectations in terms of the use of language.

A discourse community is a collection of individuals that share the same kind of activities or are members of the same field such as nursing. These are people who have a similar or a particular way of communicating with each other. They have common goals, values, and beliefs which are requirements for a discourse community (Cram 462). Discourse communities must have a way of conveying messages and exchanging information and each of these varies according to the group. Nurses are important in patient care and play a very important role in assisting patients to manage their sicknesses, prevention of diseases, and promoting health in the communities. The more they become skilled the more they are accustomed to more responsibilities and become included in their discourse communities. They learn more about the objectives, principles, and language of the discourse community. This is done towards making the nurses understand and learn more to help those that are beginners in nursing. A discourse community is further defined as an idea of languages or genres as a basis of shared expectations, participation, and expressions.

 The characteristics of a discourse community include an agreed set of common objectives and should have a technique of intercommunication among the participants. Another characteristic is that a discourse community utilizes and has possession of one or more genres in communication and techniques which help to provide feedback and information. Discourse communities have members that have acquired the same level of expertise. The goal of nursing is to provide quality care, improve, and promote well-being. Another goal is to cure and manage infectious diseases. The nursing discourse community promotes education continuation and self-wellness which it finds to be valuable for the patients and the nurses themselves. In concluding about the characteristics of the discourse communities, nursing has to incorporate people with a high level of expertise and the new graduates. In discourse communities, each member has a status in the group (Emlen 680). The way different people exchange information varies according to their group. Exchange of information may include, meetings, conversations, newsletters, or any other mode of written or spoken communication. This shows that discourse communities have a wide range of getting things done through different ways of communicating.

 In the speech community, the three factors that are major in identifying it are area, which shows a relatively fixed scope, the population that is stable and has an appropriate number, and finally the language variety which has been accepted and is used in that particular area. Identification and interaction work through different types of verbal communication. A speech community can be developed if it meets the criteria on its religion, population, and identification. Each factor in speech communities has its value. Discourse communities interact with wider speech communities which is a broader term than the discourse communities (Cram 478). Speech communities are important for discussions of spoken and written discourse. Factors that help define speech communities are social, geographical, political, cultural, and ethnic factors. In nursing, language is used to ensure quality care and educate patients and their families of that care. The language provides the human lifestyle in the way to communicate meaning and understanding within society. It is unique to the society and culture that we are born in, one that we decide to work, live or become part of and forms the social structure of the community and the nation as a whole.

The nurse’s professional identity is enveloped as clinicians, researchers, and educators. They embrace several mediums that help to improve communication for the members of the team. With the rise of technology, some organizations have installed communication devices that ease the process of communication among the staff and the patients. This makes it easier and there is an effective flow of work throughout the organization. When there is an effective flow of work, patients get a good quality of care. The language provides communication for nurses and through communication, there is the conveying of information and understanding. Communication could be through written or spoken words, visual systems, interactions with colleagues and patients, and thorough documentation from different sources. As a nurse, it is important to have good communication skills and be able to listen at the same time. It is also important to be patient mostly in a case where the patient is not able to speak due to a health issue that has affected their speech. Communication plays a major role in ensuring that there is the existence of sound relationships, cooperation which is part of their professional practice. The way communication is done between the patient and the nurses have a very big impact on the outcome of the patient. Effective nursing communication helps to reduce medical errors and makes a positive outcome for the patient (Gudrun & Berggren 774). Clear communication ensures that there is an understanding between people and the message being conveyed is done effectively. Poor communication can lead to confusion or conveying the wrong message which can be a major problem in the nursing culture and can lead to dangerous outcomes. Interaction between people is like a cycle whereby one person evokes a reaction from another person and the reaction stimulates another reaction from the first person.

Nursing culture works towards the collaborative care of individuals from all groups, ages, and communities who are sick or well. It involves promoting health, prevention of diseases, and quality care for the sick (Gudrun & Berggren 772). It involves caring for the mentally ill, the disabled, and the physically ill. It also involves educating patients and their families about health conditions and providing medication and treatments. I am very passionate about ensuring that people are in good health. In this culture, I can meet different types of people, and with different conditions and illnesses. This allows me to explore more to be able to assist them. I do follow-ups on my patients to ensure that the well-being of my patients is restored and they can live their normal lives. Nursing culture to me includes giving hope and supporting the sick emotionally ensuring that they feel safe and in good hands. Healthy people too need to be provided with information about preventive and wellness measures.

Some of the terms and roles used in the nursing culture are, a primary caregiver who is a nurse whose interventions work towards meeting the physical, psychological, spiritual, and environmental needs of patients and their families using critical thinking skills. A nurse leader is involved in the disciplinary team for patients and contributes to the improved quality of care for the patients. A nurse leader coordinates the patient’s physical and psychological evaluations, their care, education, and support. They also help the patients to navigate through the hospital system and giving them referrals to allied health professional for them to get better care. They are responsible for maintaining clinical competencies and participating in the activities that help in the development of other healthcare professionals. A patient advocate’s role is to respect the decisions made by the patients and boost patient autonomy.  This role includes having a nurse-patient relationship to help secure the protection of the rights of patients and act as an intermediary between patients and health providers. A nurse educator is in charge of educating the patients, their families, and the community at large (Gudrun & Berggren 778). A nurse specialist is a recorded nurse who is accomplished and has the authorization to function in an advanced and extended clinical role.

The professional standards and expectations in nursing culture include quality assurance standards that ensure that nurses practice their profession with quality efforts which help to promote their competences and their practices. Another standard is confidentiality which is the privacy of the patients that should be practiced. All information belonging to the patient should be kept confidential. Employers should ensure that they hire new health staff who are competent and this guarantees quality services to the patients. Discourse communities are important to comprehend because they are part of how people communicate with the social world around them (Cram 463). For one to be a member of the nursing discourse community, they first have to embrace their role as a nurse and have a passion for the nursing field and the people in it. Nursing school is the place where a person starts getting in the nursing discourse community by learning the terminologies and the knowledge that is common among the nurses. Another way that one can get involved in the discourse communities is through research, by getting familiar with the dos and don’ts of nursing. In general, discourse communities bring people together who have common objectives, and purposes and contribute to the group with mechanisms that are only limited to the group members. Being a part of the discourse community as a nurse enables one to interact with other nurses sharing knowledge and embracing the different opportunities in nursing and being part of growth.

Quality of care is very important in the nursing culture. A major issue in the nursing community is the shortage of staffing. Nurses often undergo long working hours to provide standard care and mostly this happens when there is a shortage of workers. There is a significant rise in the shortage of nurses in healthcare organizations and is believed that they might worsen over the next few years. It is a concerning situation for the nurses where there are shortages. This is because they are not able to provide quality care because they are involved in other duties. According to “Staff Shortages Hurting Nursing Homes the Most.” (88), standard care is important for the patients and their families and the shortages make it difficult for them and the nurses. This makes the nurses feel like they are not providing enough care and to reduce this feeling they end up overworking and feeling dissatisfied. It affects them physically and emotionally which is a feeling that one gets when feel like they are not performing their duties as they should. The shortages of staffing also hinder the safety of the patient. This is because one worker has a lot of patients to attend to and cannot follow up on one patient to know how they are progressing. In nursing, patient care involves penetrating through to a patient and when they are limited, that is not possible.

Nursing shortages result in increased morbidity and mortality rates. It is also one of the main reasons that nurses lack to be satisfied with their workplace and sometimes opt to find another employer. The challenges that hospitals face in providing enough staffing includes a high number of experienced workers who are retiring. There is also an increased demand for nurses due to population aging and not enough supply nurses to meet the current demand. Shortages in staffing lead to nurses sometimes being expected to perform duties that are not professional such as housekeeping duties, transportation among others. There is reduced employment and improved over time and also the decrease in the time of stay of a patient. Staffing shortages cause the nurses to work for long hours which is a risk because of fatigue that could give rise to medical errors (Brian et al. 400). Many nurses leave their job because of high demand and expectations. When nurses are overloaded due to a shortage of staffing, the lack of satisfaction that they get from this leads to a lack of motivation, nonattendance, turnover, and perform their duties poorly. This threatens the quality of care for the patient and the effectiveness of the organization. This leads to the patient’s dissatisfaction due to a lack of standard care.

High workload stresses the nurses in different settings leading to emotional exhaustion which can lead to anger, burnout, and other emotional outbursts. Nurses with these kinds of stresses cannot be able to perform their duties effectively affecting patient care and safety. The nursing workload leads to the violation of an organization's policies and rules. This is because nurses perform their duties sometimes in a hurry and not enough care of whatever they are doing so that they can finish and attend to some other duty (Brian et al. 404). They also tend to improvise their own rules or procedures to complete their tasks which are a violation of the clinical protocol. In general, workload leads to irresponsible behavior which could lead to accidents in the healthcare organization. Protocol violation mostly happens when the nurses are pressured or have high workloads due to crisis conditions. Under these pressures and amounts of work, the nurses may not have enough time to use the right procedures or rules to provide quality health care to the patients. The relationship between nursing overload and quality of care for the patients greatly affects this particular nurse with the overload. Staff shortages decrease the period nurses may have to assist other nurses. It also leads to a lack of training for new nurses. The shortage of staff causes overcrowding which causes an escalation in the period of hospitalization. This also has an impact on the organizations, hospitals, clinics, and healthcare facilities. If they cannot accommodate patients, this means that they lose out of business making it unsuccessful.

Conclusion

A discourse community is a collection of individuals that interact through dialogues which are regarded as basic principles and suppositions and methods of interactions about those objectives. Speech communities are important for discussions of spoken and written discourse. Overcrowding leads to nurses committing more mistakes. Nursing culture to me includes giving hope and supporting the sick emotionally ensuring that they feel safe and in good hands. Staffing shortages cause issues like patients having to wait for long hours for consultation with the doctor which can lead to a patient’s situation becoming worse. Staffing shortages also impacts the patient’s well-being because they do not get the required attention. For the ones who get the chance to be admitted, they are attended by a nurse who is exhausted and overworked meaning that the patient does not get quality of care.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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