Conversation Analysis and Medicine (original) (raw)

Making Conversation Analysis Accessible: A Conceptual Guide for Health Services Researchers

Qualitative Health Research, 2022

The quality of healthcare communication can impact both experiences and outcomes. We highlight aspects of communication that can be systematically examined using Conversation Analysis (CA) and provide guidance about how researchers can incorporate CA into healthcare studies. CA is a qualitative method for studying naturally occurring communication by analyzing recurrent, systematic practices of verbal and nonverbal behavior. CA involves examining audio-or video-recorded conversations and their transcriptions to identify practices speakers use to communicate and interpret behavior. We explain what distinguishes CA from other methods that study communication and highlight three accessible CA approaches that researchers can use in their research design, analysis, or implementation of communication interventions. Specifically, these approaches focus on how talk is produced (specific words, framing, and syntax), by whom, and when it occurs in the conversation. These approaches can be leveraged to generate hypotheses and to identify patterns of behavior that inform empirically driven communication interventions. Keywords conversation analysis; qualitative methodology; doctor-patient interaction; health services research; healthcare communication Distinguishing Conversation Analysis From Other Methods Conversation Analysis is one of many methods used to study healthcare communication, but a few features make it distinct from other approaches (Parry & Land, 2013). First, CA research studies naturally occurring conversations,

Intervening With Conversation Analysis: The Case of Medicine

In this article, we discuss the notion of a 'conversation analytic intervention,' focusing on the role of conversation analysis in the major stages of intervention research, epitomized by the randomized controlled trial, the gold standard for intervention in the medical sciences. These stages embrace development, feasibility and piloting, evaluation, and implementation. We describe how conversation analytic methods are used as part of the first two stages and how a conversation analytic skill base and sensibility must be deployed in managing the last two stages. Through a review of practical requirements for successful, externally-funded intervention research, we provide suggestions for how to maximize the potential for basic, conversation analytic research to eventuate in intervention. Data are in American English. The progressive expansion in the range, quality, and reliability of conversation analytic (CA) findings over recent years has increased confidence that these findings will find significance in real-world applications. These applications are, of course, various. As Antaki (2011) observed, there are numerous ways in which CA findings can be applied, such as toward the establishment of new areas of scholarship or toward a better understanding of macrosocial issues, communication problems, organic/psychological disorders, and the workings of social institutions. When CA is

Research on Language and Social Interaction Intervening With Conversation Analysis: The Case of Medicine

In this article, we discuss the notion of a 'conversation analytic intervention,' focusing on the role of conversation analysis in the major stages of intervention research, epitomized by the randomized controlled trial, the gold standard for intervention in the medical sciences. These stages embrace development, feasibility and piloting, evaluation, and implementation. We describe how conversation analytic methods are used as part of the first two stages and how a conversation analytic skill base and sensibility must be deployed in managing the last two stages. Through a review of practical requirements for successful, externally-funded intervention research, we provide suggestions for how to maximize the potential for basic, conversation analytic research to eventuate in intervention.

Quantitative and qualitative approaches to the evaluation of the medical dialogue

Social science & medicine (1982), 1992

Increasing availability of audio and videotape of medical encounters has drawn the attention of researchers from diverse disciplines and perspectives. Unfortunately, the result has more frequently been interdisciplinary competition than collaboration. Most striking are the differences in approach between researchers applying qualitative and quantitative methods. Advocates of each of these methods have not only argued their own relative merits, but have maintained unusually critical and intellectually isolated positions. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the paradigmatic perspective which promotes mutual exclusivity is in error. We present several examples of research findings which demonstrate the rich potential for cross-method research. Examples have been taken from the areas of most fruitful qualitative and quantitative research--information gathering, patient disclosure, and information-giving.