Effect of Gender on Communication of Health Information to Older Adults

Gendered communicative construction of patients in consultation settings

This study aimed to explore the communication in consultations between patients and health care staff from a gender perspective. We used 23 tape-recorded consultations between patients with Atrial Fibrillation and 5 nurses and 5 physicians at cardiac outpatient clinics at 6 different hospitals in southern Sweden during autumn 2009 to explore the verbal gendered constructions of patients. Through critical discourse analysis, we revealed that the male patients tended to describe their ailments with performance-oriented statements, whereas the female patients usually used emotional-oriented statements. The staff downplayed the male patients' questions and statements, while they acknowledged concern toward the female patients. Both the patients and the staff made conclusions according to a mutual construction. Male patients were constructed as competent, and female patients as fragile through gender-stereotypical communication. Open-ended statements and questions enabled consultations to be less limited by gender stereotypes.

Communication and cultural issues in providing reproductive health care to immigrant women: health care providers' experiences in meeting the needs of [corrected] Somali women living in Finland

Communication problems due to language and cultural differences between health care professionals and patients are widely recognized. Finns are described as more silent whereas one concurrent large immigrant group, the Somalis, are described as more open in their communication. The aim of the study was to explore physicians-nurses/midwives' communication when providing reproductive and maternity health care to Somali women in Finland. Four individual and three focus group interviews were carried out with 10 gynecologists/obstetricians and 15 nurses/midwives from five selected clinics. The health care providers considered communication (including linguistic difficulties), cultural traditions, and religious beliefs to be problems when working with Somali women. Male and female physicians were generally more similar in communication style, interpersonal contacts, and cultural awareness than the nurses/midwives who were engaged in more partnership-building with the Somali women in the clinics. Despite the communication and cultural problems, there was a tentative mutual understanding between the Finnish reproductive health care professionals and the Somali women in the clinics.

Randomized controlled trial comparing tailoring methods of multimedia-based fall prevention education for community-dwelling older adults

OBJECTIVE

We attempted to determine whether multimedia fall prevention education using different instructional strategies increases older adults' knowledge of fall threats and their fall prevention behaviors.

METHOD

Fifty-three community-dwelling older adults were randomized to iwo educational groups or a control group. Multimedia-based educational interventions to increase fall threats knowledge and encourage fall prevention behaviors had two tailoring strategies: (1) improve content realism for individual learners (authenticity group) and (2) highlight program goals and benefits while using participants' content selections (motivation group). Knowledge was measured at baseline and 1-mo follow-up. Participants recorded prevention behaviors for 1 mo.

RESULTS

Intervention group participants showed greater knowledge gains and posttest knowledge than did control group participants. The motivation group engaged in more prevention behaviors over 1 mo than did the other groups.

CONCLUSION

Tailoring fall prevention education by addressing authenticity and motivation successfully improved fall threats knowledge. Combining motivational strategies with multimedia education increased the effectiveness of the intervention in encouraging fall prevention behaviors.

Using interactional and linguistic analysis to distinguish between epileptic and psychogenic nonepileptic seizures: a prospective, blinded multirater study

This study was carried out to test the suggestion that close interactional and linguistic examination of the communication between neurologists and patients during a first encounter can contribute to the differential diagnosis of epilepsy or psychogenic nonepileptic seizures. Twenty unselected patients admitted for video/EEG telemetry because of diagnostic uncertainty were included. Two linguists blinded to all medical data independently studied video recordings and transcripts of 25- to 35-minute interactions. They attempted to predict the medical diagnosis on the basis of qualitative assessments addressing 17 separate observations. They also used a diagnostic scoring aid (DSA) to convert their qualitative assessments into a simple numeric score. Using qualitative assessment, both linguists predicted 17 of 20 (85%) diagnoses (kappa=0.59). With the DSA, diagnoses were predicted with a sensitivity of 85.7% (71.4%) and a specificity of 84.6% (92.3%). This blinded, prospective multirater study confirms the diagnostic value of linguistic and interactional observations in the seizure clinic setting.

Health literacy and the role of the speech-language pathologist

PURPOSE

This article reviews concepts of health literacy and discusses the role of speech-language pathologists in improving the health literacy of individuals with and without communication disorders.

METHOD

A literature review was completed of health literacy definitions, concepts, and health literacy assessment and intervention studies with various populations. A literature review was also conducted regarding health literacy or related studies in the field of speech-language pathology.

CONCLUSION

There is a paucity of information available on health literacy within the field of speech-language pathology. Suggestions are offered regarding increasing health literacy research and intervention by speech-language pathologists.