The public, the private and the intimate in doctor-patient communication

Admission interviews at an outpatient mental health care service

Bibliographic Data

ID5966241
AuthorsJ E Bonnin (0000-0003-3459-0259, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume15
Issue6
Pages687-711
Publication date2013-12-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueDiscourse Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1461-4456 • E-ISSN: 1461-7080
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1461445613492249
OpenAlexW1964091424
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited37

This article analyzes doctor-patient communication at admission interviews in an outpatient mental health care service at a public hospital in Buenos Aires, Argentina. These interviews are the first contact between professionals and patients, and they result in the admission or rejection of the latter into the medical institution. In particular, we observe how context, understood as a sociocognitive and scalar concept, is reshaped with gaze direction and agenda-setting through interaction, resulting in three hierarchical spaces which can be represented as degrees in a scale: the public, the private, and the intimate level. This description will allow us to understand a series of communicative difficulties that may result from scale maladjustments, in which professionals interact with patients at different levels and therefore cannot give adequate feedback to satisfy mental health care needs

Business · Gaze · Institution · Mental health · Mental health service · Outpatient clinic · Psychiatry · Public health · Sociology · Community Health and Development · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Medicine · Nursing · Psychology · Social Representations and Identity

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Open DOISci-HubOpen Access