EDUCATIONAL INTERVENTION
The "Teach-to-communicate" educational intervention includes a BASIC COURSE open to all socio and healthcare professionals, non-professional staff and administrative personnel, and an ADVANCED COURSE limited to professionals who are involved in care planning meetings with residents and/or their family carers.
BASIC COURSE
The goal is to promote knowledge on how successfully engaging in difficult communication and involves one 6-hour session based on:
a) lesson on clinical and ethical principles of difficult communication with sharing of strategies and resources useful in clinical practice, including the booklet that provides guidance in difficult communication;
b) brainstorming session on good and bad examples of communication;
c) video on Mr. Carlo’s clinical case model; Mr. Carlo has advanced dementia and is institutionalized.
The video addresses three challenging situations:
i) Dealing with emotions (suffering and crying) and offering support;
ii) Exploring the level of awareness;
iii) Supporting in the search for meaning of the illness.
d) small group discussion.
ADVANCED COURSE
The goal is to improve relational and communication skills in complex situations. Specifically, the course aims to:
accommodate emotions and silence;
deescalate conflicts;
explore and accommodate curative-oriented care preferences;
respond to unrealistic or ambivalent care expectations;
promote residents’/family carers’ awareness on the disease trajectory;
communicate bad news (e.g. prognosis/worsening);
support residents and/or their family carers in the decision-making process;
support residents and their family carers in processing the illness/loss/mourning (e.g. denial, acceptance, search for meaning).
The course is 16 hours in length, runs over a three months period, and offers highly experiential education:
a) a Forum-theater workshop, i.e. a form of theater where professionals being trained are initially spectators and then are called to intervene and seek solutions by replacing the actors;
b) a simulation workshop on difficult communication scenarios;
c) in the field family care conferences followed by a colleague’s feedback that acted as an external observer and a guided reflection;
d) a community of practice where professionals have the opportunity to share the problems that emerged during the family care conferences and the strategies they adopted;
e) online asynchronous self-educational activities based on videos with good and bad examples of communication accompanied by a commentary guide; a discussion forum moderated by a communication expert is also available.