Stroke Training and Awareness Resources (STARs)

How to ask about how someone is feeling

Clinicians often assume that patients will ask for help if they are having emotional difficulties, and so don’t ask about them (Detmar et al., 2000). However, patients often see staff as too busy to discuss this type of information, or feel embarrassed to bring it up, or think that nothing can be done to help (Ryan et al., 2005).  Ways you ask about how someone is feeling include:

Clinicians often assume that patients will ask for help if they are having emotional difficulties, and so don’t ask about them (Detmar et al., 2000). However, patients often see staff as too busy to discuss this type of information, or feel embarrassed to bring it up, or think that nothing can be done to help (Ryan et al., 2005).  Ways you ask about how someone is feeling include:

Ask open questions- Open questions are questions that you can’t answer with yes or no. Asking open questions makes it more likely that people will tell you about how they feel. Examples of open questions are “How are you feeling today?” or “I’m sorry to hear that you’re feeling down today. Can you tell me more about that?” Using emotional words in your question also makes it more likely that people will tell you about how they feel – e.g. “Other people I’ve worked with have told me that they feel anxious when that happens. How are you feeling about it?”

Use active listening- Active listening is a way of showing the person that you are paying attention to what they are saying. Active listening includes things such as – making eye contact, encouraging them to speak (“mmm”, “go on”, nodding, looking interested), not passing judgement on what the person has said (e.g. don’t say “you’re being silly, your arm is lots better”), summarising what the person has said back to them.

Be empathic- Acknowledge how the other person is feeling (e.g. “I can see that this is really getting you down”). Being warm, genuine, interested in and non-judgemental of the other person helps them to feel that you care for them and understand how they are feeling.

Summarise- summarising what someone has said to you shows that you have listened to them but also gives them an opportunity to clarify something if you have misunderstood them. This can also be a good time to discuss and agree with the person any changes you need to make to the care you are providing right now, or what they / you can do to help with how they’re feeling. Remember – you don’t have to fix everything on the spot. If you’re unsure what would be best to do, tell them that you’ll think about this and talk about it with the other people involved in their care and get back to them.

 

Ask open questions- Open questions are questions that you can’t answer with yes or no. Asking open questions makes it more likely that people will tell you about how they feel. Examples of open questions are “How are you feeling today?” or “I’m sorry to hear that you’re feeling down today. Can you tell me more about that?” Using emotional words in your question also makes it more likely that people will tell you about how they feel – e.g. “Other people I’ve worked with have told me that they feel anxious when that happens. How are you feeling about it?”

Use active listening- Active listening is a way of showing the person that you are paying attention to what they are saying. Active listening includes things such as – making eye contact, encouraging them to speak (“mmm”, “go on”, nodding, looking interested), not passing judgement on what the person has said (e.g. don’t say “you’re being silly, your arm is lots better”), summarising what the person has said back to them.

Be empathic- Acknowledge how the other person is feeling (e.g. “I can see that this is really getting you down”). Being warm, genuine, interested in and non-judgemental of the other person helps them to feel that you care for them and understand how they are feeling.

Summarise- Summarising what someone has said to you shows that you have listened to them but also gives them an opportunity to clarify something if you have misunderstood them. This can also be a good time to discuss and agree with the person any changes you need to make to the care you are providing right now, or what they / you can do to help with how they’re feeling. Remember – you don’t have to fix everything on the spot. If you’re unsure what would be best to do, tell them that you’ll think about this and talk about it with the other people involved in their care and get back to them.

Page last reviewed: 05 Aug 2021