Using a Mixed-Methods Needs Analysis to Ensure the Sustainability and Success of English for Nursing Communication Courses: Improving Nurse-Patient Engagement Practices in Globalized Health Care

To better engage with patients, nurses need employ various communication skills, particularly “engagement strategies” that enable them to understand, elicit or empathize patients’ concerns. Such engagement is essential delivering good patient-centered care. This paper describes one part of a mixed-methods needs analysis: the aim was find and analyze illustrative examples actual nursing in English showed between patients within an intercultural/international context mainland China, where are increasingly needing interact due globalization. confirm concretely illustrate previously established strategies found literature, direct observations were made nurse’s authentic interactions non-Chinese patient, which then complemented by post-observation interview. A detailed linguistic analysis data yielded rich qualitative description how practiced, along quantitative on typical distribution variety everyday nurse-patient interactions. Drawing Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), this details for different speech functions used discourse moves interactions, argues more central focus teaching these useful their patterns use. The pedagogical benefits clinical implications study will be apparent practitioners specific purposes (ESP) nurse educators around world who involved English-medium international contexts.