Listen: When words don’t come easy

Highlights

• Listening has underused therapeutic and intrinsic value.

• In everyday healthcare practice, the act of listening is not always easy to accomplish.

• Interventions on the level of policy, practice and research are needed to have a person’s voice count more.

Abstract

Objective

Listening is at the very heart of communication in healthcare, but largely ignored in research and teaching. This paper presents different perspectives on listening within the context of healthcare and its implications for goal-directed communication.

Methods

The assets of listening are examined from several angles (the listening patient, the listening health professional, and the listening self) and illustrated by the results of relevant research.

Results

Listening is a multidimensional concept and serves different purposes in healthcare. To benefit fully from it's potentials, the listening attitude and skills of patients and health professionals need to be enhanced through interventions at the level of policy, practice and research. Results from research evaluating creative and innovative ways of strenghtening persons' listening skills are encouraging.

Conclusion

Listening has underused potential which can be boosted by interventions directed at the level of healthcare policy, practice and research.

Practice implications

For healthcare practice, it is helpful to keep in mind that listening involves more than hearing what the other person says; one also needs eyes, a heart, and undivided attention.

Introduction

In many research and teaching projects that aim to improve medical communication, one tends to treat communication in a reductionist way by focusing on distinct aspects such as providing empathy, information-giving or reassuring. These are, without doubt, important communication elements that need to be cherished and promoted, but move away from what can be considered an essential and basic requirement in every human interaction, namely the very art of listening. The moment people meet and start to exchange thoughts, feelings and information, listening becomes indispensable. In medical encounters, listening is relevant for fulfilling the affective as well as the instrumental communication needs that patients bring forward in a more or less explicit way. By listening, a health professional indicates that the patient’s voice counts, whereas a listening patient makes clear that he or she appreciates an expert opinion. Listening is, however, no easy task to accomplish. After all, does a health professional hear the message the patient wants to convey, and how does he know? What is the meaning behind another person’s words? The present paper provides an overview of different elements and perspectives that are central to the concept of listening and depicts listening from angles relevant to healthcare practice. By clarifying the meaning and value of listening, a more goal-directed use of this partly neglected concept in daily healthcare might be achieved.