Patient Initiated Presentations of Additional Concerns

TY - JOUR

T1 - Patient Initiated Presentations of Additional Concerns

AU - Nielsen, Søren Beck

PY - 2012/10

Y1 - 2012/10

N2 - Patients sometimes visit their general practitioners with more than one concern. This article investigates when and how patients initiate presentations of such additional concerns. The study is conversation analytic in its approach and scope. It is based upon video-recordings of naturally occurring general practice consultations in Denmark. Data suggest that Danish patients relatively frequently initiate presentations of additional concerns and defer such initiations until moments when the parties would otherwise engage in closing down the consultations. Additional concerns are introduced in response to the doctor's possible pre-closing remarks. The parties, thereafter, employ a set of transitional elements: confirmation, preliminary announcement and ratification. This transition enables the parties to recycle the activities of the visit, to discuss and examine yet another concern. Thus, additional concerns are not presented completely unexpectedly or randomly as commonsense understanding sometimes has it; they are introduced at orderly moments and by means of recognizable methods.

AB - Patients sometimes visit their general practitioners with more than one concern. This article investigates when and how patients initiate presentations of such additional concerns. The study is conversation analytic in its approach and scope. It is based upon video-recordings of naturally occurring general practice consultations in Denmark. Data suggest that Danish patients relatively frequently initiate presentations of additional concerns and defer such initiations until moments when the parties would otherwise engage in closing down the consultations. Additional concerns are introduced in response to the doctor's possible pre-closing remarks. The parties, thereafter, employ a set of transitional elements: confirmation, preliminary announcement and ratification. This transition enables the parties to recycle the activities of the visit, to discuss and examine yet another concern. Thus, additional concerns are not presented completely unexpectedly or randomly as commonsense understanding sometimes has it; they are introduced at orderly moments and by means of recognizable methods.

U2 - 10.1177/1461445612454081

DO - 10.1177/1461445612454081

M3 - Journal article

SN - 1461-4456

VL - 14

SP - 549

EP - 565

JO - Discourse Studies

JF - Discourse Studies

IS - 5

ER -