Nurses require complex communication abilities to enable informed, culturally safe and person-centred care in challenging contexts. The way in which a clinician manages communication is consequential and can have a pivotal influence on clinical outcomes. Learning how to build relationships with patients and develop rapport or display empathy in difficult circumstances requires students to become more aware of their own as well as their patients' attitudes, emotions and needs however, such skills take time to develop and are difficult to teach. Communication is a key standard for practice, and the teaching of communication strategies across undergraduate nursing curricula is often incorporated in a range of topics and scenarios, using methods such as role play, simulation, and virtual reality. Despite this, students have reported reluctance to engage with patients, difficulty initiating conversations and anxiety engaging in complex conversations. In this paper, we propose a new approach to teaching communication, underpinned by Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory that uses discourse analysis to supplement and enhance other methods. Discourse analysis uncovers the strategic interactional work that builds relationships, highlighting the strategies and ways nurses achieve this with their patients. We use excerpts of transcripts from real-life nurse-patient interactions to demonstrate the communication and relational strategies that RNs use to build therapeutic relationships; how they build rapport with their patients and display empathy.

Chronic pelvic pain (CPP) is a debilitating and costly condition that imposes substantial physical, psychological, and economic burden. It is associated with a high prevalence of psychiatric comorbidity, and the persistent nature of pain significantly disrupts psychological well-being and social functioning, with profound effects on quality of life. This brief review synthesizes current evidence on the mechanistic pathways implicated in CPP, as well as associated psychological factors, including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. In addition, the efficacy of established psychological interventions for CPP is reviewed including emerging treatments that have not yet been systematically assessed in individuals with CPP.

Postbiotics, including inactivated microorganisms and their bioactive components, have emerged as innovative candidates for microbiota-targeted therapies. Among them, Lactobacillus reuteri-derived postbiotics represent a promising and underexplored strategy for modulating host physiology without the risks associated with live bacteria. Selenium enrichment may further enhance these benefits by strengthening antioxidant defenses and regulating inflammation, two central mechanisms to microbiota-gut-brain axis communication. In this study, we investigated the antidepressant- and anxiolytic-like effects of L. reuteri LRE02 in three formulations: a live probiotic (Lr), an inactivated postbiotic (ILr), and a selenium-enriched postbiotic (ILr/Se) in male Swiss mice. Animals were assigned to five groups: vehicle, Lr, ILr, ILr/Se, and fluoxetine, and treated intragastrically for 14 days (300 μL, 10[9] CFU/mL). Behavioral tests and biochemical analyses were subsequently performed. All L. reuteri-based treatments presented antidepressant-like effect and reduced corticosterone levels, indicating HPA axis modulation. The postbiotic formulations also improved oxidative stress parameters, reduced TNF-α and IL-6 across the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and small intestine, and restored IDO expression. Notably, ILr/Se exhibited anxiolytic-like effects and upregulated PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling and NRF2 expression in the intestine, suggesting enhanced redox and neuroplasticity support. The key innovation of this work lies in demonstrating that inactivated and selenium-enriched L. reuteri postbiotics exert antidepressant-like and anxiolytic-like effects, offering advantages in stability, safety, and reproducibility. These findings highlight postbiotics, especially when combined with selenium, as promising candidates for future microbiota-based interventions targeting mental health.