Premium
Disclosing discourses: biomedical and hospitality discourses in patient education materials
Author(s) -
Öresland Stina,
Friberg Febe,
Määttä Sylvia,
Öhlen Joakim
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
nursing inquiry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.66
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1440-1800
pISSN - 1320-7881
DOI - 10.1111/nin.12097
Subject(s) - paternalism , hospitality , discourse analysis , subject (documents) , readability , deconstruction (building) , sociology , health literacy , critical discourse analysis , power (physics) , position (finance) , public relations , health care , medicine , psychology , political science , linguistics , law , business , ideology , ecology , philosophy , physics , tourism , finance , quantum mechanics , library science , computer science , politics , biology
Patient education materials have the potential to strengthen the health literacy of patients. Previous studies indicate that readability and suitability may be improved. The aim of this study was to explore and analyze discourses inherent in patient education materials since analysis of discourses could illuminate values and norms inherent in them. Clinics in Sweden that provided colorectal cancer surgery allowed access to written information and ‘welcome letters’ sent to patients. The material was analysed by means of discourse analysis, embedded in Derrida's approach of deconstruction. The analysis revealed a biomedical discourse and a hospitality discourse. In the biomedical discourse, the subject position of the personnel was interpreted as the messenger of medical information while that of the patients as the carrier of diagnoses and recipients of biomedical information. In the hospitality discourse, the subject position of the personnel was interpreted as hosts who invite and welcome the patients as guests. The study highlights the need to eliminate paternalism and fosters a critical reflective stance among professionals regarding power and paternalism inherent in health care communication.