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Abstract
Pediatricians face unique challenges when trying to communicate with children and family members. Effective communication is more crucial and more complicated than it is with adults, leading to unique situations that necessitate increased abilities. A pediatrician should adapt communication skills to a continuously changing interlocutor. Among children with special communication needs are teenagers, children from intensive care units (preoperative and post-surgery phase), oncology patients, children with hear loss, mental disabilities and, due to global migration and refugees crisis, children whose primary language is different from the physician's language. When talking to a child and his family, a doctor must follow four Es - engagement, empathy, enlistment and education; other factors influencing child's and family's perception of the message are the age, physical appearance, experience, "know-how" and vocation. According to these trends, an improvement in communication with pediatric patients should be a continuous concern in Romanian children's hospitals.
Key words: Children, Communication, Pediatrician
1. INTRODUCTION
Children's hospitals face unique challenges trying to make practical improvements in their communication with children and family members. Effective communication is more crucial, and often more complicated than it is with adult patients, leading to unique situations that necessitate increased abilities. Studies (Farrell, 2001) have shown that poor delivery of the message is common in pediatric settings, leading to high levels of parental dissatisfaction and may reflect the lack of training health care professionals generally get for these situations. Verbal, nonverbal, and electronic communication abilities vary greatly among patients and physicians of diverse generations. Pediatric medical communication has particular aspects that differ in structure, format, and content from adult patient medical communication. Pediatric visits are particularly challenging in requiring that the physician engage in a dance with not one but at least two partners -parent and child - and that the physician be able to lead at times and follow at others. The communication between pediatrician, children and parents is similar to a triad, each part having particular role and involvement.
2. COMMUNICATION WITH THE PARENTS
The parental status is important in determining the attitude and the expectancies towards the medical staff: the parents may be hospital first-timers, youngsters accompanied by their own parents, single, divorced, remarried or recent immigrants whose primary language is not Romanian. They may...