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Why respiratory therapists need to study psychology?
Why respiratory therapists need to study psychology?

Respiratory Therapy is a very important allied health profession that has a direct contact with patients, therefore, Respiratory Therapist must have some very good skills when communicating with patients and their families regarding the various aspects of care, like acute care situations, or taking care of a chronically ill patients. Good knowledge of psychological issues for each individual patient is a must in our profession as it does make a big difference when attempting, starting, or assessing patients for their respiratory treatments, rehabilitation, or just helping them to accept their condition of illness and how they should adapt mentally to it. It has been found that dealing with any disease is not only being treated physiologically by drugs and performing procedures, it also has to be combined with a psychological assessment and in some cases a treatment might be required. When a Respiratory Therapist approaches a patient, the first thing he should do is to introduce and identify himself, looking and standing professional, this will give the patient a feeling of safety, because the person who just approached him looks like he knows what he is doing and knowledgeable enough to deal with his disease in all aspects. After introduction, comes explaining the procedure whether giving a treatment, performing therapy, or even just an assessment. When this is done with the appropriate way of communication, it might give the patient the feeling of being cared for. Explaining the procedure and the outcome reveals that this particular Respiratory Therapist demonstrates high quality of care and also helps giving the patient a chance to get involved in his own treatment. This not only applies with the patient, but as well as the family. Sometimes, giving them a chance to be involved with the process of treating the patient also helps with his psycho social environment, therefore the outcome of the treatment will improve significantly. when the family develops an understanding for the nature of that disease, it helps with the avoidance of the disease`s causative agents and reasons for other family members. While performing any therapy for any particular patient, the Respiratory Therapist should always give the patient a chance to do most of the work himself, to encourage him and to reward him for his performance and sometimes teaching him of better ways to perform the procedure. For example, a simple treatment of deep breathing and coughing exercise, the Respiratory Therapist should always start by asking the patient to take a deep breath, hold it inside his chest, compress it, and let it explode out. The only role of the Respiratory Therapist in this procedure is leading the patient towards the right way of performing a cough, most of the physical work was done by the patient. Involvement of the Respiratory Therapist comes in the form of leading the patient in his own treatment. In this simple example, the Respiratory Therapist should always encourage the patient to depend on himself and ask him to keep on training performing this procedure, and he should always reward him with compliments by saying "good job", "well done", or even by the gesture of patting him on his back with a smile expressing that he did a great job. Another example is when a Respiratory Therapist is doing chest physiotherapy with active percussions on a particular side of the lung. After introducing and explaining the procedure, the therapist should ask the patient to position himself in the right manner to drain that particular part of his lungs while performing chest percussions. The physical job now is a shared duty between both the caregiver and the care receiver. Still the patient participated by positioning himself to drain his secretions out. In this example, the Respiratory Therapist made the patient to do almost half of the work, therefore, with time, he will build the sense of dependency with the patient. In acute care setting such as Intensive Care Unit and Emergency Room, honesty and truthfulness is one of the best if not the only way of informing the patient of his present medical condition, and this might have an impact in decreasing his anxiety, stress, and fear. If he cannot understand nor unable to communicate, lethargic patient for instance, he should also be told because you never know that your patient is 100% unable to listen to what you are saying. Still, if any of the family members is present, they should also be informed of what is happening, what might happen, and what is to be done. A patient lying down in an ICU bed, facing the ceiling, with difficulty of breathing, does not need extra stress of not knowing what is happening to him. Some of the ICU patients are usually with hand straps, and unfortunately some Health Care Practitioners, with time, or after years of dealing with patients, they lose the human part inside them, and they forget that this person lying down is a human being too, and needs to know what is happening and what sort of treatment he is going through. Hiding such facts away from that powerless patient will add more agony, pain, and suffering to his soul. A smile is always a good way of representing good news and also bring the tension down. For instance, if there is an improvement on the C-XR, the Respiratory Therapist should bring the news with a smile. Listening carefully to a patient's complaints without interruption sometimes represents a good manner, therefore it would be reflected on patient's psychological status. When dealing with terminally ill patients, whom are expected to carry the result of their disease with them for the rest of their lives, the therapist should expect some depression, the psychological approach is very vital. Teaching the patient and the family to accept the illness and to accept that they will live with it requires high knowledge of psychology and very good communication skills. In conclusion, Psychology is a vital component if any medical profession specially in Respiratory Care. The way a good Respiratory Therapist or a Health Care Professional should communicate with a patient or his family is a knowledge by itself. Facts, introductions, identifications, and any means of communicating should be done in a gentle, harmless, and ascending way. Still the involvement of a real clinical psychiatric is essential as a source of advices and a reference to difficult cases especially stubborn patients whom are hard to deal with.

Reference Egan et al,1996, Egan`s fundamentals' of respiratory care sixth edition1996, page 1080-1082 Prof. Mohammed A. Alsughayir, Basic Psychiatry, second edition 2011, page 165, 321-326. Am J, Respiratory Critical Care Medicine. 1994 Apr;149(4 Pt 1):930-4 Science daily. Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Effective in Combating Anxiety Disorders, june 28.2012

AN ARTICLE BY Talal M Alanazi Snr RRT. prince sultan cardiac center riyadh- saudi arabia