Qualitative Health Communication

The role of civil society organizations (CSOs) as community-based knowledge brokers: A qualitative study with CSOs during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada

Simran Purewal — 2024-08-30

Background: This study explored how civil society organizations in British Columbia, Canada, obtained, shared, and communicated multilingual COVID-19 information with people whose first language is not English. Aim: The aim was to examine civil society organizations’ role as community-based knowledge brokers during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Commencing in December 2022, virtual semi-structured interviews were conducted with employees from civil society organizations in British Columbia (N=15). Results: Civil society organizations played a crucial role in sharing multilingual information with people whose first language is not English. They amplified public health messages, addressed confusion concerning public health orders, and engaged with community members to better understand and address local needs. Discussion: Civil society organizations contributed to health communication efforts and succeeded in reaching populations overlooked by mainstream communication channels. Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic provides an opportunity to reflect on the role of civil society organizations as community-based knowledge brokers that acted as intermediaries to support information-sharing from government public health communications to priority populations. Based on this study’s findings, we propose several recommendations to enhance equity-based preparedness, responses, and recovery for health emergencies.

The UK NHS cervical screening information leaflet: discourse, purpose and potential for change

Madeleine Tremblett — 2024-08-30

Background: Cervical cancer screening prevents unnecessary deaths, yet rates of attendance have been dropping in the United Kingdom. Leaflets communicate screening information in invites to everyone eligible to attend. However, these information leaflets are known to be hard to understand and inaccessible. Aim: To understand how cervical screening is constructed in information leaflets and how this might impact engagement with screening programmes. Method: Discourse analysis of the current UK information leaflet, and a version redesigned with a public and patient involvement group. Result: The current leaflet uses discourses of neutrality and patient autonomy, with design akin to scientific texts. The redesigned leaflet presents a simplified, step-by-step guide to screening that aims to motivate and persuade readers. Discussion: The current information leaflet positions intended audiences as rational agents who have responsibility to make a choice to attend screening based on scientific information. The public’s redesign positions the state as responsible for simplifying and convincing people to attend screening. The disjuncture may be due to different underlying ideologies – neoliberalism versus ‘welfarism’. Conclusion: Shifting the current discourse to simplified and clearer language which emphasises choice in the process could help people make an informed decision to engage in screening.

“I felt like it was the right thing to do”: How college students’ decisions to disclose COVID-19 diagnoses reflect privacy preferences, perceptions of stigma, and cultural norms

Jenna LaFreniere — 2024-08-30

Background: COVID-19 diagnoses can be difficult to share, as COVID-19 faces ongoing stigmatization. Aim: Framed by communication privacy management theory, this study examines how college students make decisions to disclose their COVID-19-positive statuses (or why they may not), and how those decisions are affected by perceptions of stigma and cultural norms. Methods: This study utilizes a qualitative, interview-based methodology with twenty undergraduate student participants. Results: Responses are analyzed for themes relating to communication privacy management, noting information control and co-ownership, boundary coordination, and forced/required disclosures. Responses demonstrate that a stigmatized view of COVID-19 has largely subsided, but still affects disclosure preferences and decisions. In addition, several cultural factors also shape beliefs about disclosure practices. Discussion: These findings illuminate how perceptions of COVID-19’s stigma and cultural norms shape college students’ notions of privacy, information control, co-ownership, and ultimately disclosure practices. Highlighting implications for how best to respond to future pandemics, the data presented herein provides an exploration of the relationship between privacy strategies, stigmatization beliefs, and cultural norms. Conclusion: This information will be useful in generating institutional, education, and public health responses to future pandemics, as findings suggest an under-theorized relationship between the areas of privacy management, stigmatization, and cultural norms.

Cosmetic medical tourists’ use of online and offline experiential and procedural information resources in decision-making: Implications for digital health literacy and neoliberalism

Tushar Prasad — 2024-08-30

Background: When deciding to undergo aesthetic health procedures overseas, cosmetic medical tourists access various information resources to make informed decisions about locations, facilities, health providers and procedure(s). Aim: Existing research has investigated the different resources cosmetic tourists access in their decision-making process, however, there has yet to be an in-depth analysis of the significance of each information resource in this process. Methods: Interviews with Australian cosmetic tourists regarding how and why they decided to use specific information resources. Results: We found that cosmetic medical tourists simultaneously and repeatedly used four main information resources in their decision making – websites, existing social networks, online support communities and surgeon consultations. Discussion: We characterise these resources as offering both experiential and procedural information, both generalised (non-specific and available to everyone) and personalised (originating in individual experience or tailored to the individual) information and being located both online (internet-based) and offline (in-person). Successful accomplishment of the cosmetic medical tourist journey relies on engagement with most of these resources, highlighting the role of digital health literacy and the complexity of this decision-making process. Conclusions: This process has implications for understanding the practice of digital health literacy and identifiably positions cosmetic medical tourists as neoliberal individuals.

Crisis negotiation techniques in interactional context: Managing a suicide threat in an emergency service call

Angela Garcia — 2024-08-30

Background: Previous research reveals that standard crisis negotiation techniques are useful in assisting suicidal persons, but how routine interactional procedures impact their implementation has not yet been sufficiently examined. Aim: This paper investigates how routine interactional procedures impact the effectiveness of crisis negotiation techniques in an emergency services call involving a suicide announcement. Methods: A publicly released emergency service call was transcribed and analyzed using the qualitative technique of conversation analysis. Results: The call taker used crisis negotiation techniques such as maximizing autonomy, displaying active listening, and distracting the caller to keep them on the phone. These techniques were implemented successfully through routine interactional procedures such as topic shifts, requests, and listener responses. Interrupting or overlapping the caller's speech or replacing requests with demands were less effective. Discussion: Instruction in the routine procedures of interaction may be as important as instruction in standard crisis negotiation techniques when training call takers to handle suicide announcement calls. Conclusions: Qualitative analysis of suicide announcement calls can be an effective means of learning how crisis negotiation techniques are used in practice and how emergency call takers can help prevent suicide by keeping callers on the phone and persuading them to abandon their suicidal plans.

Editorial

Matilde Nisbeth Brøgger — 2024-08-30