Authors (including presenting author) :
Ng JMK(1)(2)(3), Tam KW(2)(3), Tong KY(1)
Affiliation :
(1) Department of Psychiatry, Prince of Wales Hospital, (2) Department of Psychiatry, North District Hospital, (3) Department of Psychiatry, Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital
Introduction :
Non-violent communication is a language of compassion (Rosenberg, 2012). Nosek, Gifford & Kober (2014) further indicated that non-violent communication is a mothed to encourage a compassionate response to emotions as assumed humans have universal needs. There are 4 steps included observation, feelings, needs and requests would be concerned in the communication (The center for nonviolent communication, 2020). Nafise & Ghazal (2018) indicates that non-violent communication model is an effective way in emotion-focused coping style which can even reduce suicide ideation via better self-control and less emotion-communication problems. The element of mindfulness brings the awareness to current experience, includes observing and attending to changes in the here and now non-judgmentally (Bishop el at., 2004). Therefore, mindfulness could be a useful element in NVC practice. Therefore, nurses of Common Mental Disorder Clinics (CMDC) in New Territories East Cluster (NTEC) had organized a group intervention for enhancing communication skills of patients with common mental disorders, integrating non-violent communication and mindfulness-based practice.
Objectives :
1.To enhance patients’ communication skills via observation, feeling, needs and requests; 2.To enhance patients’ skills of showing empathy to oneself and others; 3.To reduce patients’ symptoms of depression and anxiety.
Methodology :
Six weekly 1.5-hour group sessions were held in Li Ka Shing Psychiatric Outpatient Clinic (LKSPC), Psychiatric Outpatient Clinic of Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital (AHNHPC) and Psychiatric Outpatient Clinic of North District Hospital (NDHPC). The Chinese version of Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), the Chinese version of General Anxiety Disorder 7-item (GAD-7) Scale were done before and after the intervention. SPSS Statistics 25 was applied for data analysis. Meanwhile, a self-developed patient satisfaction survey was completed in last group session.
Result & Outcome :
Among the 40 participants, 27.5% were males (n=11) and 72.5% were female (n=29). The range of participants’ age was from 24 to 68 years old, with a mean age of 54.32. There were 80% of participants (n=32) as adult patient and 20% of them(n=8) as geriatric patient. The anxiety and depressive symptoms of the participants had been reduced after the intervention. Statistically significant difference was found respectively between pre- and post- scores of GAD-7 and PHQ-9. For the patient satisfaction survey, more than 80% of participants indicated ‘Strongly agree’ and ‘Agree’ in the questions, related to the knowledge enhancement and overall satisfaction. (should be shown with a Table, the questions and the results) To conclude, the Mindfulness-based emotion regulation group with non-violent communication model is an effective way to reduce patients’ anxiety and depressive symptoms. PHQ-9 t= 4.34 P= 0.000* GAD-7 t= 3.33 P= 0.002* PHQ-9, in male participants t= 4.00 P= 0.003* PHQ-9, in female participants t= 2.93 P= 0.007* GAD-7, in male participants t= 4.36 P= 0.001* PHQ-9, in adult participants t= 3.57 P= 0.001* PHQ-9, in geriatric participants t= 2.70 P= 0.031* GAD-7, in adult participants t= 2.59 P= 0.015* GAD-7, in geriatric participants t= 2.42 P= 0.046* (* means P < 0.05)
