Managing perturbations during handover meetings: a joint activity framework

Abstract

AimTo document the prevalence of perturbations of handover meetings and understand how nurses manage temporal, physical and social meeting boundaries in response to perturbations.BackgroundHandovers are joint activities performed collaboratively by participating nurses. Perturbations of handover are frequent and may potentially threaten continuity of care.DesignWe observed and videotaped handovers during five successive days in four nursing care units in two Swiss hospitals in 2009.MethodsVideorecordings were transcribed. All perturbations during the handovers were noted. We performed content analysis of the sources of perturbations from the notes and interactional micro‐analyses of handover interactions based on video and transcripts.ResultsNurses are the most frequent sources of perturbations during handovers. Perturbations are collaboratively managed. A tacit division of labour is enacted via multimodal communication strategies, whereby perturbations are dealt with using both linguistic and bodily signals.

Evidence of joint commitment in great apes' natural joint actions

“…[ 8 , 9 ]), an allegedly uniquely human capacity resulting from an unmatched cooperative nature and motivation to share goals [ 56 ]. In the present study, we challenge this view by showing that, following natural interruptions of joint actions, both chimpanzees and bonobos resume joint actions with previous partners, similarly to humans [ 4 , 10 , 11 , 27 ]. This was regardless of joint action type and usually consisted of continuing to groom the same body part region or to play the same play type—notably at the same location, indicating some continuity of the suspended joint action rather than the start of a new one.…”

“…Empirically, joint commitment manifests itself when ongoing joint actions are interrupted, either due to a partner's inability or unwillingness to continue [7][8][9] or due to external interruptions by third-party individuals [10,11]. Individuals wishing to interrupt a joint action typically justify the necessity of the interruption, whereas those being interrupted unexpectedly often protest and attempt to re-engage partners [8,9,[12][13][14][15].…”

“…Human politeness predominantly involves speech (and to a lesser extent non-verbal communication [ 29 ]) and complex forms of self-awareness [ 30 ]. In regulating joint commitments, people deal with suspensions and resumptions via utterances such as ‘Sorry, I have to deal with this, I'll be right back’, or ‘Sorry for keeping you waiting’ [ 10 , 27 , 31 ]. The amount of politeness, produced by partners to collaboratively manage each other's face, depends on the duration of the interruption [ 27 ] as well as the social distance between the partners and the partners' relative social ranks [ 28 ].…”

Ethnomethodological studies of nurse-patient and nurse-relative interactions: A scoping review

“…The importance of studying multimodal aspects in professional settings has been repeatedly shown in the literature (e.g., Heath, 1986;Maynard and Heritage, 2005;Goodwin, 1994;Mondada, 2007;Streek and Kallmeyer, 2001). However, this has been less frequent in the study of nursing (e.g., see González-Martínez et al, 2016;Mayor and Bangerter, 2015).…”

Flexible Coordination of Stationary and Mobile Conversations with Gaze: Resource Allocation among Multiple Joint Activities

“…In an edited volume ( Haddington et al, 2014 ), various aspects of the coordination of multiple activities were investigated, focusing on the interplay between verbal and embodied resources in the real-time unfolding of those activities. A variety of settings have been studied, including talking while driving ( Mondada, 2012 ) and nursing teams (e.g., Mayor and Bangerter, 2015 ). Field studies can describe how resource sharing among activities is accomplished, which is a valuable contribution.…”