Laughter as a patient's resource: Dealing with delicate aspects of medical interaction

5. Laughter as a “serious business”: Clients’ laughter in prenatal screening for Down’s syndrome

“…Previous studies of laughter in medical contexts (e.g. Haakana 2001) have shown that typically it is patients who laugh more and in most cases their laughter is not reciprocated by doctors. As Haakana notes (2001: 196), particularly when dealing with delicate issues, "by not laughing the doctors seem to be doing the right thing".…”

“…Previous research in medical contexts has shown that laughter is often used to "ease" embarrassing, sensitive or painful aspects that are typical of medical encounters, and to create an alignment between participants (e.g. Haakana 1999Haakana , 2001Haakana , 2002. In our previous work on laughter in PS we have shown that laughter may be employed by nurses to help them achieve the main institutional goal of these interactions, namely facilitating autonomous choice by their clients, i.e.…”

On Invoking Third Parties in Vietnamese Medical Communication

“…reluctance to disclose this information to Chu (Haakana, 2001 11 device to elicit information from Sang. Once he has elicited this information, Chu is able to convince her of the veracity of this information as well (line 125), since it came from an RM.…”

“Tudo bem”, “tudo em paz” e “uma tremenda sorte”: Avaliações positivas no gerenciamento da incerteza na comunicação entre oncologistas e pacientes com câncer de mama

“…Após esse atraso, Salete explicitamente diz que sente medo, produzindo riso a seguir. Markku Haakana (2001) sugere que esse tipo de riso em contexto médico-paciente caracteriza a produção de ações delicadas (que aqui pode ser revelar algo mais íntimo, como sua condição emocional), demonstrando reconhecer a delicadeza da sua ação. Além disso, pode estar minimizando um possível caráter de "queixa" de sua fala.…”