Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The last few years have seen a rapid growth in sociological research on health movements. This developing field of study brings together insights from medical sociology, sociology of science, and social movements to understand the social processes of contestation over health and illness concerns. While providing insights related to authority and expertise, health movements research tends to focus on national organizations, and has yet to consider how issues become organized at an international or global level. In this conference paper, I seek to advance health movements research through the case of international patient safety advocacy conducted by the World Health Organization’s World Alliance for Patient Safety. With the goal of promoting patient safety globally, the Alliance has set forth a variety of campaigns that ultimately seek international safety standardization in healthcare, while at the same time attempting to include the patient perspective in the development of standards. It is through this dual process of international standardization and patient inclusion that the World Alliance makes patient safety global, and can thus be an example of a global health movement.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The influences of patients’ Internet health-information seeking on the physician-patient relationship, and on disparities in health care, are debated with little evidence to inform the issues. Access to the Internet is associated with socioeconomic status. However, whether access to Internet-based health information reduces disparities in health care is unknown. Even less is known about these issues in clinical oncology interactions, where being informed is especially critical to decision making. This study (a) analyzes relationships between patients’ reports of post-diagnosis use of the Internet for cancer information and relational features of communication with oncologists (e.g., closeness, control, language as coded from videotapes), patients’ use of other sources of information about cancer (e.g., print, electronic, and interpersonal sources), patients’ self-assessments of their specialized knowledge (e.g., behavioral science, medicine, natural sciences); and (b) investigates the role of patients’ socioeconomic status in mediating those relationships.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The importance of the Internet to patients seeking health information has been well established. Although it is understood that communication about Internet information occurs in medical encounters, research has been limited about the actual occurrence of talk between clinicians and patients about health information that the patient has found on the Internet. We conducted a study to examine patients’ experiences talking to their clinicians about Internet health information.

The study sample (n=920) was recruited from Internet health message boards to participate in an online survey. Participants in the study sample reported that they had researched their or their loved one’s health on the Internet within the last year and had talked with a clinician about that information. Participants completed a 30-item survey, including questions focusing on participants’ recent, recalled encounters with a clinician.

There was no difference between male and female clinicians’ use of legitimation behaviors or between male and female patients’ perceptions of such behaviors. A small correlation was found behind patient/clinician familiarity and legitimation behaviors. Legitimation was significantly associated with patient satisfaction ratings. Interestingly, patient satisfaction ratings were relatively low. A second patient outcome, change in concern, was also associated with the degree to which the patient felt legitimated by the clinician.

An understanding of the occurrence of clinician-patient talk about Internet health information and its relationship to patient outcomes is important for practicing clinicians as well as medical educators who seek to better understand, and thus improve, the communicative nature of the medical encounter.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Combining social learning theory and involvement, a national survey of 470 oncology nurses indicated that nurse-patient communication plays an essential role in shaping the nurse’s function as a social model for the cancer patient regarding nutrition as supportive cancer therapy. Furthermore, nurse-patient communication related directly to the degree of perceived need of the nurse to acquire more knowledge about nutrition. The involvement construct applied in a social learning context offers a new perspective regarding personal gain and perceived self-efficacy as a possible continuum that enhances social learning, with emphasis on model-dependent relevance of publicized messages. Results indicate that those seeking to reach patients through oncology nurses with effective messages regarding nutrition should emphasize the value of nurse-patient communication as well as the professional and personal benefits of nutritional knowledge for nurses themselves.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This study examines how a patient's willingness to disclose on the topics of alcohol abuse and bulimia is influenced by the perceived severity of the health condition and by expectations of a positive or negative reaction from the physician to the medical information. Participants with severe health effects, and patients who expected a positive physician reaction, were significantly more likely to disclose. Patients with serious health effects who expected their physicians to react in a positive manner were far more likely to disclose than patients in the other conditions.