A Therapeutic Communication Study of Families with Children Suffering from Cancer

Therapeutic communication is a relatively new area of research in Indonesia. It is widely known that the success of therapeutic communication is largely influenced by the medical providers' communication effectiveness when dealing with their clients. This paper reports on research that aimed to explore the connection between therapeutic communication and satisfaction and dissatisfaction as experienced by families of child cancer patients. It used a quantitative approach with a cross-sectional design. The sample was the families of child cancer patients who were acccompanying the patients during hospital stay treatment at an Indonesian public hospital in Jakarta over the period December of 2014 - March 2015. There were 23 respondents for the research. The statistical test used was chi-square with an 0.05 level of significance. The result indicated that 56.5% of the respondents were satisfied with the therapeutic communication provided by nursing staff and that those who praticed therapeutic communication well, were 22 times more likely to provide a satisfactory level to the families of child cancer patients compared with those who did not apply good therapeutic communication (the value of p=0.003 and Odds ratio= 22). Thus, the research indicated that the medical providers' communication effectiveness was associated with the patients' satisfaction. We suggest that medical providers be given workshops on how to improve their communication skills to make their clients more satisfied with the medical services.