We are happy to announce a meeting of the TechMedCom discussion group.

Ms. Zuzanna Jechna will deliver a talk based on her MA project and tell us about her Conversation Analytical study of communication in hospital emergency rooms. Through a selection of excerpts from a Polish medical documentary, it will be illustrated how healthcare professional adopt prosodic convergence and non-convergence while regulating anxiety in the patients.

“Interpersonal emotion regulation during medical interventions and patient compliance with treatment: Conversation Analysis of interactions between healthcare professionals and patients”

Time: June 22, 14:00–14:45

Venue: Room 226/227

Collegium Heliodori Święcicki

We warmly invite everybody to attend the event and participate in the discussion.

Abstract of the talk

The term patient compliance denotes the extent to which patient behaviour is in line with the received medical recommendations. Model behaviours include, for example, abiding by drug dosage regimens or dietary restrictions (Kardas 2010: 26-27). However, research conducted among Polish patients has indicated that not following medical advice is widespread among them. One of the associated risk factors is a high level of anxiety in the patient (Celczyńska-Bajew et al. 2014: 209). Accordingly, a common strategy adopted by healthcare professionals (HPs) to make the patient more willing to comply with medical recommendations is interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) of the patient’s negative affect.

The data set in the current qualitative study was constituted by forty-two episodes of the Dyżur (‘Shift’) medical documentary. Conversation Analysis was applied to gain some insight into how prosodic convergence and non-convergence are utilised by HPs during IER. As observed, HPs exhibit both types of prosodic adjustment towards patients while regulating the level of anxiety in them. It was inferred that convergence may be used by the HP to convey a sense of being empathically moved. Alternatively, non-convergence may increase the HP’s trustworthiness as perceived by the patient while the HP is explaining to them that there is no reason to be anxious. In the presentation, both behaviours will be classified as separate IER strategies.

References

Celczyńska-Bajew, Liliana, Anna Posadzy-Małaczyńska, Natalia Rabiza and Hanna Skrzypek. 2014. “Przestrzeganie zaleceń lekarskich przez pacjentów wiejskich praktyk lekarza rodzinnego” [Factors affecting compliance with treatment – opinion of family doctor’s patients from rural area], Family Medicine & Primary Care Review 16, 3: 208-210.