Communicating To Manage Health And Illness

This edited volume advances the theoretical bases of health communication in two key areas: communication, identity, and relationships; and health care provider patient interaction. Chapters aim to underscore the theory that communication processes are a link between personal, social, cultural, and institutional factors and various facets of health and illness.

In this book Richard Gwyn demonstrates the centrality of discourse analysis to an understanding of health and communication. Focusing on language and communication issues he demonstrates that it is possible to observe and analyze patterns in the ways in which health and illness are represented and articulated by both health professionals and lay people. Communicating Health and Illness: · Explores culturally validated notions of health and sickness and the medicalization of illness · Surveys media representations of health and illness · Considers the metaphoric nature of talk about illness · Contributes to the ongoing debate in relation to narrative based medicine

Communicating to Manage Health and Illness is a valuable resource for those in the field of health and interpersonal communication, public health, medicine, and related health disciplines. This scholarly edited volume advances the theoretical bases of health communication in two key areas: 1) communication, identity, and relationships; and 2) health care provider patient interaction. Chapters aim to underscore the theory that communication processes are a link between personal, social, cultural, and institutional factors and various facets of health and illness. Contributors to the work are respected scholars from the fields of communication, public health, medicine nursing, psychology, and other areas, and focus on ways in which patient identity is communicated in health-related interactions. This book serves as an excellent reference tool and is a substantial addition to health communication literature.

Health and illness are storied experiences that necessarily entail personal, cultural, and political complexities. For all of us, communicating about health and illness requires a continuous negotiation of these complexities and a delicate balance between what we learn about the biology of disease from providers and our own very personal, subjective experiences of being ill. Storied Health and Illness brings together dozens of noteworthy scholars, both established and emerging, in a provocative collection that embraces narrative ways of knowing to think about, analyze, and reconsider our own and others’ health beliefs, behaviors, and communication. Comprehensive content reflects the editors’ substantial research in integrative health, narrative care, and innovative ways of improving well-being and quality of life in personal relationships, healthcare, the workplace, and community settings. Unique narrative approaches to the study of health communication include: • 14 chapters written by 22 contributors who use engaging stories from their own research or personal experience to introduce and ground foundational communication concepts in healthcare, health promotion, community support, organizational wellness, and other health-related sites of interest. • Compelling stories of individuals living with the inherent challenges and unexpected opportunities of mental illness, addiction, aging, cancer, dialysis, sexual harassment, miscarriage, obesity, alopecia, breastfeeding, health threats to immigrant workers, developmental differences, and youth gun violence. • 36 Health Communication in Action (HCIA) sidebars that highlight applied research of innovative health communication scholars in their own words and then prompt readers to think more deeply about their own perspectives and experiences. • Theorizing Practice boxes that encourage readers to reflect on stories that describe significant experiences in their own and others’ lives as they consider assumptions and enlarge their viewpoints in previously unimagined ways.

Ensure you have the skills to effectively communicate with patients and other healthcare professionals! With its easy-to-read style, Effective Communication for Health Professionals, 2nd edition, is loaded with useful tips and exercises to help you learn the universal (and necessary) practice of communication. This full-color second edition reflects current therapeutic techniques, including Communication Guidelines feature boxes, Words at Work dialogue boxes, added case studies, and all-new content exploring the most current communication tools in the modern health care setting. In addition, interactive exercises on the Evolve companion website encourages you to practice therapeutic communication techniques in real-life situations. UNIQUE! Interactive activities on accompanying Evolve site include a variety of application exercises such as scenarios with voice mail messages and patient/caregiver interviews. Easy-to-read style provides practical information, hints, and tips. Test Your Communication IQ boxes provide you with a short self-assessment test at the beginning of each chapter. Spotlight on Success boxes provide you with useful, practical tips for improving workplace habits and communication. Expanding Critical Thinking boxes provide actual case examples and activities with useful tips to help you apply what you’ve learned to practice. Legal Eagle boxes provide useful tips that focus on honesty, as well as ethical and legal communication between patients and healthcare workers. End-of-chapter questions and exercises help you to use knowledge learned from topics presented in the chapter. NEW! Chapter devoted to cross-cultural communication promotes understanding of care in a diverse workplace NEW! Chapter on diseases and disorders discusses communication with patients experiencing specific physical and mental illnesses and disorders. NEW and UNIQUE! Words at Work dialogue boxes demonstrate actual conversations between healthcare workers and clients. UPDATED! Content reflects the most current communication tools for the modern healthcare setting. NEW! Full-color design and art program promote engagement. NEW and UNIQUE! Communication Guidelines boxes direct you to best practices for the effective exchange of information. NEW! Additional Taking the Chapter to Work case studies demonstrate real-life communication pitfalls and successes.

Physicians who care for patients with life-threatening illnesses face daunting communication challenges. Patients and family members can react to difficult news with sadness, distress, anger, or denial. This book defines the specific communication tasks involved in talking with patients with life-threatening illnesses and their families. Topics include delivering bad news, transition to palliative care, discussing goals of advance-care planning and do-not-resuscitate orders, existential and spiritual issues, family conferences, medical futility, and other conflicts at the end of life. Drs Anthony Back, Robert Arnold, and James Tulsky bring together empirical research as well as their own experience to provide a roadmap through difficult conversations about life-threatening issues. The book offers both a theoretical framework and practical conversational tools that the practising physician and clinician can use to improve communication skills, increase satisfaction, and protect themselves from burnout.

The culture-centred approach offered in this book argues that communication theorizing ought to locate culture at the centre of the communication process such that the theories are contextually embedded and co-constructed through dialogue with the cultural participants. The discussions in the book situate health communication within local contexts by looking at identities, meanings and experiences of health among community members, and locating them in the realm of the structures that constitute health. The culturecentred approach foregrounds the voices of cultural members in the co-constructions of health risks and in the articulation of health problems facing communities. Ultimately, the book provides theoretical and practical suggestions for developing a culture-centred understanding of health communication processes.

Rethinking Culture in Health Communication An interdisciplinary overview of health communication using a cultural lens—uniquely focused on social interactions in health contexts Patients, health professionals, and policymakers embody cultural constructs that impact healthcare processes. Rethinking Culture in Health Communication explores the ways in which culture influences healthcare, introducing new approaches to understanding social relationships and health policies as a dynamic process involving cultural values, expectations, motivations, and behavioral patterns. This innovative textbook integrates theories and practices in health communication, public health, and medicine to help students relate fundamental concepts to their personal experiences and develop an awareness of how all individuals and groups are shaped by culture. The authors present a foundational framework explaining how cultures can be understood from four perspectives—Magic Consciousness, Mythic Connection, Perspectival Thinking, and Integral Fusion—to examine existing theories, social norms, and clinical practices in health-related contexts. Detailed yet accessible chapters discuss culture and health behaviors, interpersonal communication, minority health and healthcare delivery, cultural consciousness, social interactions, sociopolitical structure, and more. The text features examples of how culture can create challenges in access, process, and outcomes of healthcare services and includes scenarios in which individuals and institutions hold different or incompatible ethical views. The text also illustrates how cultural perspectives can shape the theoretical concepts emerged in caregiver-patient communication, provider-patient interactions, social policies, public health interventions, and other real-life settings. Written by two leading health communication scholars, this textbook: Highlights the sociocultural, interprofessional, clinical, and ethical aspects of health communication Explores the intersections of social relationships, cultural tendencies, and health theories and behaviors Examines the various forms, functions, and meanings of health, illness, and healthcare in a range of cultural contexts Discusses how cultural elements in social interactions are essential to successful health interventions Includes foundational overviews of health communication and of culture in health-related fields Discusses culture in health administration, moral values in social policies, and ethics in medical development Incorporates various aspects and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic as a cultural phenomenon through the lens of health communication Rethinking Culture in Health Communication is an ideal textbook for courses in health communication, particularly those focused on interpersonal communication, as well as in cross-cultural communication, cultural phenomenology, medical sociology, social work, public health, and other health-related fields.