Active listening.
Active listening is an important consultation skill, as it helps you to identify your patient’s ideas, concerns and expectations and enables you to develop a better rapport with them, leading to a more effective consultation.
There are four components to active listening
- Wait-time
- Facilitative response
- Non-verbal skills
- Picking up and using verbal cues
Wait-time
Facilitative response & non verbal skills
Facilitating disclosure through non-verbal and verbal techniques is an important part of active listening. Facilitative gestures (nodding, eye contact, appropriate reactive facial expression) can be combined with facilitative verbal consultation skills which provide minimal interruption e.g. ‘umming’, ‘ Go on’, ‘I see’ or using brief echoed or reflected patient statements – all of which indicate interest and active listening which encourage disclosure.
Picking up and using verbal cues
How to improve your active listening – Ruth McGuire (BMJ)
· Resist the urge to interrupt.
· Do not allow yourself to be distracted by other things or people.
· Encourage others to express themselves with smiles, acknowledgements etc.
· Reflect on and evaluate ‘what and how’ is being said rather than who is saying it.
· Be patient with people who are not articulate.
· Avoid thinking about what you want to say next, concentrate on what is being said.