Improving communication between nurses and Black patients with cancer to improve patient outcomes

Significant disparities exist between Black and White patients in cancer screening, prevalence, treatment and outcomes. Patient-clinician communication is another area where there are significant disparities between Black and White patients. Importantly, patient-clinician communication has an impact on patient outcomes. This literature review aims to look at factors that impact communication between clinicians and Black patients to identify the nurses’ role in communicating better with Black patients to decrease cancer disparities. The review was conducted following PRISMA guidelines. The databases searched include: PubMed & CINAHL. MeSH terms included were: “cancer”, “oncology”, “neoplasm”, ”African American”, “Black”, “education”, “communication”, “patient education”, ”consumer health information”, “health communication”, “consumer health”, “health literacy”, and ”health literate”. Studies were included if they had (1) study participants with a cancer diagnosis, (2) information specific to Black or African American participants, and (3) information on patient-clinician communication. Studies were screened by two researchers who read 879 titles and abstracts to determine relevance, and 67 full text articles to confirm eligibility. Ultimately 21 studies are included in this review. The results showed that increasing shared decision-making and active participation, increasing trust, relationship building, and including the family and community in discussion was shown to improve communication with Black patients. It was also found that Black patients lacked information about psychosocial support, pain management, side effects and treatment, health behaviors (diet and physical activity), and end of life discussions. In conclusion, nurses can work to decrease cancer disparities that impact Black patients by improving patient-clinician communication. Nurses can work hard as the most trusted profession to build trust and relationships with Black patients by being aware of personal bias, assessing each patient as an individual and not assuming they know the patient’s needs.Bachelor of Scienc