To Örebro University

Background: In cancer care, contact nurses daily meet people who deal with strong, aversive emotions in relation to that they have or may have cancer where the risk of dying is constantly present. This places demands on the ability of contact nurses to master difficult conversations with strong emotional expressions. One communication method known for its regulating effects on emotions is affirmative communication, so called validation. The overall aim of the current study was to evaluate effects of a training in validating communication for contact nurses in cancer care, aimed to strengthen their ability to work in a person-centered way.

Methods: This study had a within-group design with pre-, post- and follow-up measurements (2 months). Specifically, the study aimed to evaluate whether the validation training coincided with an increase in validation and a decrease in invalidation. Contact nurses from six regions (n = 17) with a generally long work experience as a nurse participated in a digital validation training for six weeks (three training sessions plus three pre-recorded theoretical lectures). Communicative behaviors were assessed through video-recordings of interactions between the nurses and fictitious patients. The videos were encoded by independent coders and analyzed with dependent MANOVA.

Results: The contact nurses showed a significant increase in validation and a significant decrease in invalidation after the training. These effects remained at the 2-month follow-up.

Conclusions: Experienced healthcare professionals' affirmative communication skills can be improved after a brief training in validation.