Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - The analysis of verbal interaction sequences in dyadic clinical communication: A review of methods
AU - Connor, M
AU - Fletcher, Ian
AU - Salmon, P
PY - 2009/5
Y1 - 2009/5
N2 - ObjectiveTo identify methods available for sequential analysis of dyadic verbal clinical communication and to review their methodological and conceptual differences.MethodsCritical review, based on literature describing sequential analyses of clinical and other relevant social interaction.ResultsDominant approaches are based on analysis of communication according to its precise position in the series of utterances that constitute event-coded dialogue. For practical reasons, methods focus on very short-term processes, typically the influence of one party's speech on what the other says next. Studies of longer-term influences are rare. Some analyses have statistical limitations, particularly in disregarding heterogeneity between consultations, patients or practitioners. Additional techniques, including ones that can use information about timing and duration of speech from interval-coding are becoming available.ConclusionThere is a danger that constraints of commonly used methods shape research questions and divert researchers from potentially important communication processes including ones that operate over a longer-term than one or two speech turns. Given that no one method can model the complexity of clinical communication, multiple methods, both quantitative and qualitative, are necessary.Practice implicationsBroadening the range of methods will allow the current emphasis on exploratory studies to be balanced by tests of hypotheses about clinically important communication processes.
AB - ObjectiveTo identify methods available for sequential analysis of dyadic verbal clinical communication and to review their methodological and conceptual differences.MethodsCritical review, based on literature describing sequential analyses of clinical and other relevant social interaction.ResultsDominant approaches are based on analysis of communication according to its precise position in the series of utterances that constitute event-coded dialogue. For practical reasons, methods focus on very short-term processes, typically the influence of one party's speech on what the other says next. Studies of longer-term influences are rare. Some analyses have statistical limitations, particularly in disregarding heterogeneity between consultations, patients or practitioners. Additional techniques, including ones that can use information about timing and duration of speech from interval-coding are becoming available.ConclusionThere is a danger that constraints of commonly used methods shape research questions and divert researchers from potentially important communication processes including ones that operate over a longer-term than one or two speech turns. Given that no one method can model the complexity of clinical communication, multiple methods, both quantitative and qualitative, are necessary.Practice implicationsBroadening the range of methods will allow the current emphasis on exploratory studies to be balanced by tests of hypotheses about clinically important communication processes.
KW - Communication
KW - Sequence analysis
U2 - 10.1016/j.pec.2008.10.006
DO - 10.1016/j.pec.2008.10.006
M3 - Journal article
VL - 75
SP - 169
EP - 177
JO - Patient Education and Counseling
JF - Patient Education and Counseling
SN - 0738-3991
IS - 2
ER -