Communication skills: breaking bad news in the clinical setting.

Oncology nurses need to develop expert communication skills, especially when delivering bad news to patients and families. Patients and families differ in their needs for levels of information, interpretation of information delivered to them, and responses to unfavorable news. When bad news is delivered in a sensitive and caring manner, morale can be maintained, and the process of coming to terms with illness or death is possible through realistic expectations and hope. It is valuable for nurses to elicit patients' or family members' understanding of what is happening to them, and what they need is key in the process of communicating in a crisis time. Also, skill in responding to feelings and not the content of expression is necessary to the process of recovery. So many improved cancer treatments exist, but the goal of effectively communicating bad news with respect and caring is just as important as treating the person who happens to have cancer.