Parent-nursing student communication practice: role-play and learning outcomes.

Parents accompanying their child's hospitalization can experience stress associated with the child's illness, treatments, and major alterations in family life. Nurses often serve as the primary communicator and cultural broker because of their constant presence at the child's bedside. Nursing students may not have essential parent-nurse communication competencies. In an innovative method of teaching nursing students about communicating with parents, 64 undergraduate nursing students participated in a parent-led postconference with a nursing instructor. The parents provided background and led role-play activities and debriefing sessions with students. Feedback provided by students before and after the parent session included requests for additional parents' experiences, appreciation and exceeded expectations of hands-on experience, recognized value of information provided, and the recommendation that all students attend. We demonstrate that empathy is a teachable skill, nursing students are apprehensive about communicating with parents, and nursing students do not understand how much families rely on nurses. Copyright 2012, SLACK Incorporated.