Communication skills for the Dental Hygienist What is communication?? Why is it important to a Dental Hygienist?? After all, we are only supposed to be cleaning their teeth, besides they can talk back to us can they?? Actually, communication is the key to success especially when it comes to explaining treatment plans with our patients and more importantly allowing them the opportunity to ask us questions as well. Please remember with any communication that you need your patients full attention, your best bet is to sit your patient upright, remove your mask, gloves and safety glasses. This way you are knee to knee with your patient and also most importantly eye to eye. There are a few points to consider when it comes to communicating, let s look a little closer at each one, these are known as the 7 C s of Communication. Clear When writing or speaking to someone, be clear about your goal or message. What is your purpose in communicating with this person? If you're not sure, then your audience won't be sure either. To be clear, try to minimize the number of ideas in each sentence. Make sure that it's easy for your reader to understand your meaning. People shouldn't have to "read between the lines" and make assumptions on their own to understand what you're trying to say. Concise
When you're concise in your communication, you stick to the point and keep it brief. Your audience doesn't want to read six sentences when you could communicate your message in three Concrete When your message is concrete, then your audience has a clear picture of what you're telling them. There are details (but not too many!) and vivid facts, and there's laserlike focus. Your message is solid Correct When your communication is correct, it fits your audience. And correct communication is also error-free communication. Coherent When your communication is coherent, it's logical. All points are connected and relevant to the main topic, and the tone and flow of the text is consistent Complete In a complete message, the audience has everything they need to be informed and, if applicable, take action. Courteous Courteous communication is friendly, open, and honest. There are no hidden insults or passive-aggressive tones. You keep your reader's viewpoint in mind, and you're empathetic to their needs. There are a few variations of the 7 Cs of Communication:
Credible Does your message improve or highlight your credibility? This is especially important when communicating with an audience that doesn't know much about you. Creative Does your message communicate creatively? Creative communication helps keep your audience engaged. All of us communicate every day. The better we communicate, the more credibility we'll have with our clients, our boss, and our colleagues. Questions to ask Asking the right question is at the heart of effective communications and information exchange. By using the right questions in a particular situation, you can improve a whole range of communications skills: For example, you can gather better information and learn more; you can build stronger relationships, manage people more effectively and help others to learn too. Open and Closed Questions A closed question usually receives a single word or very short, factual answer. For example, "Are you thirsty?" The answer is "Yes" or "No"; "Where do you live?" The answer is generally the name of your town or your address. Open questions elicit longer answers. They usually begin with what, why, how. An open question asks the respondent for his or her knowledge, opinion or feelings.
"Tell me" and "describe" can also be used in the same way as open questions. Here are some examples: What happened at the meeting? Why did he react that way? How was the party? Tell me what happened next. Describe the circumstances in more detail. Open questions are good for: Developing an Open Conversation Finding out more detail Finding out the other person s opinion or issues Closed questions are good for: Testing your understanding, or the other person's Concluding a discussion or making a decision A misplaced closed question, on the other hand, can kill the conversation and lead to awkward silences, so are best avoided when a conversation is in full flow Funnel Questions
This technique involves starting with general questions, and then homing in on a point in each answer, and asking more and more detail at each level. It's often used by detectives taking a statement from a witness Probing Questions Asking probing questions is another strategy for finding out more detail. Sometimes it's as simple as asking your respondent for an example, to help you understand a statement they have made. At other times, you need additional information for clarification, "When do you need this report by, and do you want to see a draft before I give you my final version?", or to investigate whether there is proof for what has been said, "How do you know that the new database can't be used by the sales force? An effective way of probing is to use the 5 Whys method, which can help you quickly get to the root of a problem. Leading Questions Leading questions try to lead the respondent to your way of thinking. They can do this in several ways: Phrasing the question so that the "easiest" response is "yes" (our natural tendency to prefer to say "yes" than "no" Giving people a choice between two options, both of which you would be happy with, rather than the choice of one option or not doing anything at all Rhetorical Questions Rhetorical questions aren't really questions at all, in that they don't expect an answer. They're really just statements phrased in question form
Questions are a powerful way of: Learning Managing and coaching Avoiding misunderstandings De-fusing a heated situation Persuading people And the most important part of communication?? LISTENING!!!! Make sure that you give the person you're questioning enough time to respond. This may need to include thinking time before they answer, so don't just interpret a pause as a "No comment" and plow on. Skillful questioning needs to be matched by careful listening so that you understand what people really mean with their answers. Your body language and tone of voice can also play a part in the answers you get when you ask questions When all of this information is taken into consideration, your patients will feel more comfortable with talking to you and be able to ask questions when they don t understand.