Therapeutic communication part 2: strategies that can enhance the quality of the emergency care consultation.

Therapeutic, patient-centred communication as well as being desirable in its own right may also have the potential to improve satisfaction, health outcomes and change health behaviours in Emergency Care. This paper, the second of two, identifies from a substantive literature review five specific communication strategies that, when employed in an Emergency Care consultation, could significantly enhance its therapeutic potential. The five strategies: questioning, listening and noticing, communicating empathy, establishing and incorporating the patient's cares and concerns and concluding the consultation have been derived from the purposeful selection and analysis of communication research between 1990 and 2002.