• Connie Timmermann, Lisbeth Uhrenfeldt, and Regner Birkelund.
• Health Services Research Unit, Lillebaelt Hospital, Institute of Regional Health Research, University of Southern Denmark, Vejle, Denmark.
• Scand J Caring Sci. 2017 Mar 1; 31 (1): 63-71.

BackgroundThe communicative encounter has been described as a fundamental element in caring for the patients, and further, in this encounter, the nonverbal body language and the tone of speech are agued to play a crucial role.AimThis study explores how seriously ill hospitalised patients experience and assign meaning to the health professionals' communication with special attention to the nonverbal body language and tone of speech. The study is part of a larger study exploring how seriously ill patients experience and assign meaning to the sensory impressions in the physical hospital environment as well as to the health professionals' communication.MethodThe study is based on qualitative interviews supplemented by observations and applies Paul Ricoeur's phenomenological-hermeneutic theory of interpretation in processing the collected data. We included twelve patients with potentially life-threatening illnesses such as cancer, severe lung, liver and heart disease.FindingsThrough analysis and interpretation of the interviews, we identified two themes in the text: (i) Being confirmed, (ii) Being ignored and an inconvenience. The patients experienced that the health professionals' nonverbal communication was imperative for their experience of being confirmed or in contrast, their experience of being ignored and an inconvenience.ConclusionThe health professionals' nonverbal communication proved essential for the seriously ill patients' experience of well-being in the form of positive thoughts and emotions. Consequently, this sensory dimension of the communicative encounter represents a significant ethical element in caring for the patients.© 2016 Nordic College of Caring Science.

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