Identifying Facilitators and Inhibitors of Shared Understanding: An Ethnography of Diagnosis Communication in Acute Medical Settings.

ABSTRACT:

Background and aims

Communication is important in determining how patients understand the diagnostic process. Empirical studies involving direct observation of communication within diagnostic processes are relatively limited. This ethnographic study aimed to identify communicative practices facilitating or inhibiting shared understanding between patients and doctors in UK acute secondary care settings.

Methods

Data were collected in acute medical sectors of three English hospitals. Researchers observed doctors as they assessed patients; semistructured interviews were undertaken with doctors and patients directly afterwards. Patients were also interviewed 2-4 weeks later. Case studies of individual encounters (consisting of these interviews and observational notes) were creat

SUBMITTER: Cox C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11344224 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature