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Fotland SLS, Midtbø V, Vik J, Zakariassen E, Johansen IH. Factors affecting communication during telephone triage in medical call centres: a mixed methods systematic review. Syst Rev 2024; 13:162. [PMID: 38909273 PMCID: PMC11193260 DOI: 10.1186/s13643-024-02580-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/22/2023] [Accepted: 06/10/2024] [Indexed: 06/24/2024] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Telephone triage is used to optimise patient flow in emergency primary healthcare. Poor communication can lead to misunderstandings and compromise patient safety. To improve quality, a comprehensive understanding of factors affecting communication in medical call centres in primary care is needed. The aim of this review was to identify such factors and to describe how they affect communication during telephone triage. METHOD A mixed-method systematic review was performed. In April 2021 and June 2023, MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, and Web of Science were searched for original studies describing communication during telephone triage in primary care medical call centres handling all types of medical problems from an unselected population. All studies were screened by two authors, blinded to each other's decisions. Disagreements were resolved by a third author. A framework was created by the thematic synthesis of the qualitative data and later used to synthesise the quantitative data. By using convergent integrated synthesis, the qualitative and quantitative findings were integrated. The Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool was used to assess methodological limitations. RESULTS Out of 5087 studies identified in the search, 62 studies were included, comprising 40 qualitative, 16 quantitative and six mixed-method studies. Thirteen factors were identified and organised into four main themes: organisational factors, factors related to the operator, factors related to the caller and factors in the interaction. Organisational factors included availability, working conditions and decision support systems. Factors related to the operator were knowledge and experience, personal qualities and communication strategies. Factors related to the caller were individual differences and the presented medical problem. Factors in the interaction were faceless communication, connection between operator and caller, third-person caller and communication barriers. The factors seem interrelated, with organisational factors affecting all parts of the conversation, and the operator's communication in particular. CONCLUSION Many factors affect the structure, content, and flow of the conversation. The operators influence the communication directly but rely on the organisation to create a working environment that facilitates good communication. The results are mainly supported by qualitative studies and further studies are needed to explore and substantiate the relevance and effect of individual factors. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION PROSPERO CRD42022298022.
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Affiliation(s)
- Siri-Linn Schmidt Fotland
- National Centre for Emergency Primary Health Care, NORCE Norwegian Research Centre AS, Box 22, Bergen, NO-5838, Norway.
- Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, University of Bergen, Box 7804, Bergen, NO-5020, Norway.
| | - Vivian Midtbø
- National Centre for Emergency Primary Health Care, NORCE Norwegian Research Centre AS, Box 22, Bergen, NO-5838, Norway
- Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, University of Bergen, Box 7804, Bergen, NO-5020, Norway
| | - Jorunn Vik
- The Regional Centre for Emergency Medical Research and Development in Western Norway (RAKOS), Stavanger University Hospital, Box 8100, Stavanger, NO-4068, Norway
| | - Erik Zakariassen
- National Centre for Emergency Primary Health Care, NORCE Norwegian Research Centre AS, Box 22, Bergen, NO-5838, Norway
- Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, University of Bergen, Box 7804, Bergen, NO-5020, Norway
| | - Ingrid Hjulstad Johansen
- National Centre for Emergency Primary Health Care, NORCE Norwegian Research Centre AS, Box 22, Bergen, NO-5838, Norway
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Lester JN, Williamson FA, O'Reilly M. Editorial to special section: Examining question use in clinical contexts with children and youth. PATIENT EDUCATION AND COUNSELING 2024; 121:108108. [PMID: 38123376 DOI: 10.1016/j.pec.2023.108108] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/23/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Jessica Nina Lester
- Department of Counseling & Educational Psychology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA.
| | | | - Michelle O'Reilly
- School of Media, Communication and Sociology, University of Leicester, and Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust, Leicester, UK
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Williamson FA, Lester JN, Woods C, Kaye EC. Questions to promote child-centered care in racially discordant interactions in pediatric oncology. PATIENT EDUCATION AND COUNSELING 2024; 121:108106. [PMID: 38123375 DOI: 10.1016/j.pec.2023.108106] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/01/2023] [Accepted: 12/09/2023] [Indexed: 12/23/2023]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE To examine questioning practices in racially discordant interactions and describe how these practices engendered child-centered care. METHODS We used applied conversation analysis to analyze a collection of 300 questions directed to children across 10 cases involving children of color and their families in disease reevaluation appointments in pediatric oncology. RESULTS Our analysis generated two patterns: 1) both the pediatric oncologists' and caregivers built upon one another's talk to enable the child's conversational turn, and 2) the oncologists' reformulated requests as questions to invite the child's permission and cooperation for completing exams and understanding symptoms. CONCLUSION Children, pediatric oncologists, and caregivers coordinated their actions to enable children to participate as recipients of and respondents to questions. The analysis of real-time interactions illuminates practices for centering children in clinical encounters and the benefits of doing so. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS This study's findings have implications for defining competencies and practices for fostering child-centered communication, creating training materials based on real-time encounters, and identifying strategies for humanizing pediatric patient experiences.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Jessica Nina Lester
- Department of Counseling Education and Psychology, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA
| | - Cameka Woods
- St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, USA
| | - Erica C Kaye
- St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, USA
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Collins LC, Gablasova D, Pill J. 'Doing Questioning' in the Emergency Department (ED). HEALTH COMMUNICATION 2023; 38:2721-2729. [PMID: 35999189 DOI: 10.1080/10410236.2022.2111630] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Eliciting information from patients is fundamental to medical professionals' capacity to deliver good healthcare outcomes in Emergency Departments (EDs). There are different kinds of utterances that "do questioning", and health professionals can variously attend to the medical agenda and the interpersonal aspects of their interactions with those attending the ED in the way that they construct these utterances. We investigate a corpus of ED interactions to determine the prevalence and range of utterances produced by doctors and directed at patients that "do questioning." We developed a questioning utterance typology, informed by previous research on the formulation of such utterances and extended according to observations of our data. We subsequently manually coded 4,355 questioning utterances and report the variety of forms that such utterances can take, considering how these are distributed across doctors at different levels of seniority. We found that doctors at different seniority levels favored similar questioning utterance types and the most frequently used appeared to restrict the contributions of patients. We conclude that our extended typology of questioning utterances has value for understanding the ways in which doctors may encourage patients to provide more extensive responses.
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Affiliation(s)
- Luke C Collins
- ESRC Centre for Corpus Approaches to Social Science, Lancaster University
| | | | - John Pill
- Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University
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Spek M, van Charldorp TC, Vinck VV, Venekamp RP, Rutten FH, Zwart DL, de Groot E. Displaying concerns within telephone triage conversations of callers with chest discomfort in out-of-hours primary care: A conversation analytic study. PATIENT EDUCATION AND COUNSELING 2023; 113:107770. [PMID: 37150153 DOI: 10.1016/j.pec.2023.107770] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/23/2022] [Revised: 03/30/2023] [Accepted: 04/20/2023] [Indexed: 05/09/2023]
Abstract
OBJECTIVES In primary care out of hours service (OHS-PC), triage nurses ask questions to assign urgency level for medical assessment. A semi-automatic decision tool (the Netherlands Triage Standard, NTS) facilitates triage nurses with key questions, but does not leave much room for paying attention to callers' concerns. We wanted to understand how callers with chest pain formulate their concerns and are helped further during telephone triage. METHODS We conducted a conversation analytic study of 68 triage calls from callers with chest discomfort who contacted OHS-PC of which we selected 35 transcripts in which concerns were raised. We analyzed expressions of concerns and the corresponding triage nurse response. RESULTS Due to the task-oriented nature of the NTS, callers' concerns were overlooked. For callers, however, discussing concerns was relevant, stressed by the finding that the majority of callers with chest discomfort expressed concerns. CONCLUSIONS Interactional difficulties in concern-related discussions arised directly after expressed concerns if not handled adequately, or during the switch to the counseling phase. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS When callers display concerns during telephone triage, we recommend triage nurses to explore them briefly and then return to the sequence of tasks described in the NTS-assisted triage process.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michelle Spek
- Department of General Practice, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands.
| | - Tessa C van Charldorp
- Department of Languages, Literature and Communication, Faculty of Humanities, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands
| | - Vera V Vinck
- Department of General Practice, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands
| | - Roderick P Venekamp
- Department of General Practice, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands
| | - Frans H Rutten
- Department of General Practice, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands
| | - Dorien L Zwart
- Department of General Practice, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands
| | - Esther de Groot
- Department of General Practice, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands
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Briedé S, van Charldorp TC, Kaasjager KAH. Discussing care decisions at the internal medicine outpatient clinic: A conversation analysis. PATIENT EDUCATION AND COUNSELING 2022; 105:2045-2052. [PMID: 34961652 DOI: 10.1016/j.pec.2021.11.029] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/12/2021] [Revised: 11/28/2021] [Accepted: 11/29/2021] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE Explore how often, when and how care decisions are discussed during consultations at an internal medicine outpatient clinic, and what we can learn from these observations. METHODS Qualitative analysis of 150 video-taped consultations. Consultations involving a discussion of care decisions were analyzed using conversation analysis. RESULTS 1) Only 21 of the 150 consultations involved a discussion of care decisions; 2) As there is no destined phase for the introduction of the topic of care decisions, the topic is most often introduced at the end of the phase 'treatment and course of the disease'; 3) A lot of interactional effort is needed to create common ground and make relevance clear with extensive justification. Hesitation markers, repairs and hypothetical talk show the precariousness of the topic. CONCLUSIONS Three dilemma's need to be addressed: 1) a slot has to be created to introduce the topic of care decisions; 2) common ground has to be created, possibly over time; 3) the paradox of framing the topic as relevant 'in the future' but 'needs to be discussed now' needs to be attended to. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS We recommend that physician training should address the three dilemmas. Future research should focus on how to do so.
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Affiliation(s)
- Saskia Briedé
- Department of Internal Medicine and Dermatology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
| | - Tessa C van Charldorp
- Department of Languages, Literature and Communication, Faculty of Humanities, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
| | - Karin A H Kaasjager
- Department of Internal Medicine and Dermatology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
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Spek M, Venekamp R, De Groot E, Geersing GJ, Erkelens DC, van Smeden M, Rutten FH, Zwart DL. Optimising telephone triage of patients calling for acute shortness of breath during out-of-hours primary care: protocol of a multiple methods study (Opticall). BMJ Open 2022; 12:e059549. [PMID: 35450911 PMCID: PMC9024277 DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-059549] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/04/2022] Open
Abstract
INTRODUCTION Callers with acute shortness of breath (SOB) are a challenge for telephone triage at out-of-hours primary care (OHS-PC) as SOB could be the sign of a potentially life-threatening disease, yet mostly is a symptom of a broad range of self-limiting disorders. Current telephone triage practice is mainly expert based and clear evidence on accuracy, safety and efficiency of the use of the Netherlands Triage Standard (NTS) by triage nurses based on the eventual clinical outcome is lacking for this domain. METHODS AND DATA ANALYSIS Multiple methods study in five OHS-PC services in the Utrecht region, the Netherlands. Data will be collected from OHS-PC electronic health records (EHR) and backed up tapes of telephone triage conversations, which will be linked to routine primary care EHR data. In cross-sectional studies, we will (1) validate the NTS urgency classification for adults with SOB against final diagnoses and (2) develop diagnostic prediction models for urgent diagnoses (eg, composite endpoint of urgent diagnoses, pulmonary embolism, acute coronary syndrome, acute heart failure and pneumonia). We will develop improvement measures for the use of the NTS by triage nurses through practice observations and semistructured interviews with patients, triage nurses and general practitioners (GPs). In an action research approach, we will, in collaboration with these stakeholders, implement and evaluate our findings in both GP and triage nurse educational programmes as well as in OHS-PC services. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION The Medical Ethics Review Committee Utrecht, the Netherlands, approved the study protocol (protocol 21/361). We will take into account the 'code of conduct for responsible research' of the WHO, the EU General Data Protection Regulation and the 'Dutch Medical Treatment Contracts Act'. Results will be disseminated in peer-reviewed publications and at (inter)national meetings. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER NL9682.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michelle Spek
- Department of General Practice, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Roderick Venekamp
- Department of General Practice, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Esther De Groot
- Department of General Practice, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Geert-Jan Geersing
- Department of General Practice, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Daphne Carmen Erkelens
- Department of General Practice, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Maarten van Smeden
- Department of Epidemiology, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Frans H Rutten
- Department of General Practice, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Dorien L Zwart
- Department of General Practice, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, Utrecht, The Netherlands
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Bietti LM, Bietti FU. The Interactive Functions of Questions in Embodied Collaborative Work. Front Psychol 2021; 12:704275. [PMID: 34526935 PMCID: PMC8435606 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.704275] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/02/2021] [Accepted: 07/26/2021] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Researchers have been interested in the investigation of the interactive functions of questions in conversational contexts. However, limited research has been conducted on the interactive functions of questions in embodied collaborative work, that is, work that involves the manipulation of physical objects. This study aimed to identify the interactive functions of questions in embodied collaborative work. To do so, we conducted a systematic qualitative analysis of a dataset of 1,751 question-answer sequences collected from an experimental study where pairs of participants (N = 67) completed a collaborative food preparation task. The qualitative analysis enabled us to identify three functions of questions: anticipation questions, exploration questions, and confirmation questions. We have discussed in this study how the types of questions identified are associated with: (i) the accomplishment of interactional goals and (ii) complementary temporalities in the collaborative activities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lucas M. Bietti
- Department of Psychology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
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