Feeling the clunk: Managing and attributing uncertainty in screening for developmental dysplasia of the hip in infancy.

ABSTRACT: The management of uncertainty in clinical practice has been an enduring topic of sociological scholarship. However, little of this addresses how uncertainty and non-knowledge are attributed to the self and other actors. We take the example of checking for developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH), part of infant screening in UK primary care, to examine the 'double contingency' of attributions of uncertainty and ignorance. Our data come from interviews with parents and General Practitioners (GPs), and observations of the six-week check conducted as part of a study to develop a checklist to aid GPs' diagnostic and referral decisions. Parents' pervasive uncertainties about managing with a new-born infant place them in a trusting relation to biomedicine, in which knowledge about infant hips is

SUBMITTER: Milton S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9748300 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature