Patients with diabetes who experience low-health literacy often struggle in their roles as health consumers. A multi-disciplinary group of educators and researchers collaborated to develop a video intervention to help these patients better understand their disease and communicate more effectively with their physician. We describe the assessment study and report preliminary patient perception outcome data regarding the utility of the videos as a communication and health education intervention. Generally, the participants found the intervention to be helpful and informative. For many, the intervention led them to consider behavior changes. For others, the intervention was a prompt for diabetes-related conversations with their physicians. Participant responses also provided empirical support that the intervention was consistent with key principles of message design for patients with low-health literacy.Given that an estimated 90 million Americans experience low-health literacy, the medical industry emphasizes that priority must be given to creating appropriate and effective educational materials for this population (Hansen, 2008). Because communication is a central element in creating effective interventions, health communication scholars have a responsibility to work with health practitioners to address the problem of low-health literacy. In this manuscript, we present preliminary outcomes
This study examines the intercultural experiences of eight Danish expatriates in Russia. In-depth interviews revealed three characteristics of Hofstede’s dimension: Indulgence verses Restraint (IVR). This study allows us to understand communication between restrained cultures (e.g., Russia) and indulgent cultures (e.g., Denmark). This carries implications for specific and in-depth workplace training to help managers improve intercultural communication within the Russian workplace.
Discussions of diabetes management are challenging for patients and physicians during treatment plan appointments—in large part because “diabetes management” has multiple, competing meanings. Our goal in this study was to examine talk between patients and physicians over multiple visits to: (1) determine the multiple meanings of diabetes management, and (2) determine the specific ways these meanings compete with each other. To accomplish this goal, we gathered data at a family medicine residency clinic in the Midwestern United States, video-recording the interactions of six different patient-physician dyads over multiple visits. Next, we performed in-depth analyses of these interactions using Baxter’s (2011) Relational Dialectics Theory 2.0, which focuses on discourses occurring within interpersonal interactions, rather than on the individuals within interpersonal interactions. Our results reveal meanings associated with two dominant oppositional discourses comprising the meaning of diabetes management: high self-efficacy and low self-efficacy. Additionally, we found that—during conversations between patients and physicians—the central discourse of high self-efficacy competed with the less-central discourse of low self-efficacy. Our results also reveal that both patients and physicians used both discourses. Finally, our results revealed that at times, both patients and physicians mixed these discourses, creating a new “hybrid” meaning for diabetes management: Moderation. Understanding these discourses and how they compete can help physicians focus on the cultural discourses that shape their own and patients’ views of diabetes management and realize the transformational possibilities that can occur in treatment plan discussions through a more moderate discourse.
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