We feel that respiratory therapy students should be taught persuasion skills to enable them to help patients to receive more benefit from therapy. We therefore have taught our students the following 12 principles of patient persuasion: (1) One cannot not communicate, (2) One should accept another's perceptions, (3) One should not pass judgment on another's behavior before trying to understand the feelings behind it, (4) One should explain the rationale for advised therapy, (5) A patient needs to plan appropriate therapy to harmonize with his lifestyle, (6) The family should be in-cluded in any longterm therapy program, (7) Positive reinforcement enhances per-suasion, (8) Therapist "influence power" can be enhanced if the therapist can an-ticipate how the patient will feel, (9) Anticipating resistance keeps the therapist in control, (10) Alternatives should be offered, (11) Ask for behavior change, not feeling change, (12) Benevolent anger enhances persuasion. Students' comprehension of these principles was tested by written quizzes. Their clinical application was monitored by student logs and by instructors' observations.
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