IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v256y2020ics0277953620302598.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The “unknown territory” of goal-setting: Negotiating a novel interactional activity within primary care doctor-patient consultations for patients with multiple chronic conditions

Author

Listed:
  • Murdoch, Jamie
  • Salter, Charlotte
  • Ford, John
  • Lenaghan, Elizabeth
  • Shiner, Alice
  • Steel, Nicholas

Abstract

Goal-setting is widely recommended for supporting patients with multiple long-term conditions. It involves a proactive approach to a clinical consultation, requiring doctors and patients to work together to identify patient's priorities, values and desired outcomes as a basis for setting goals for the patient to work towards. Importantly it comprises a set of activities that, for many doctors and patients, represents a distinct departure from a conventional consultation, including goal elicitation, goal-setting and action planning. This indicates that goal-setting is an uncertain interactional space subject to inequalities in understanding and expectations about what type of conversation is taking place, the roles of patient and doctor, and how patient priorities may be configured as goals. Analysing such spaces therefore has the potential for revealing how the principles of goal-setting are realised in practice. In this paper, we draw on Goffman's concept of ‘frames’ to present an examination of how doctors' and patients' sense making of goal-setting was consequential for the interactions that followed. Informed by Interactional Sociolinguistics, we used conversation analysis methods to analyse 22 video-recorded goal-setting consultations with patients with multiple long-term conditions. Data were collected between 2016 and 2018 in three UK general practices as part of a feasibility study. We analysed verbal and non-verbal actions for evidence of GP and patient framings of consultation activities and how this was consequential for setting goals. We identified three interactional patterns: GPs checking and reframing patients' understanding of the goal-setting consultation, GPs actively aligning with patients' framing of their goal, and patients passively and actively resisting GP framing of the patient goals. These reframing practices provided “telling cases” of goal-setting interactions, where doctors and patients need to negotiate each other's perspectives but also conflicting discourses of patient-centredness, population-based evidence for treating different chronic illnesses and conventional doctor-patient relations.

Suggested Citation

  • Murdoch, Jamie & Salter, Charlotte & Ford, John & Lenaghan, Elizabeth & Shiner, Alice & Steel, Nicholas, 2020. "The “unknown territory” of goal-setting: Negotiating a novel interactional activity within primary care doctor-patient consultations for patients with multiple chronic conditions," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 256(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:256:y:2020:i:c:s0277953620302598
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113040
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953620302598
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113040?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Murdoch, Jamie & Barnes, Rebecca & Pooler, Jillian & Lattimer, Valerie & Fletcher, Emily & Campbell, John L., 2015. "The impact of using computer decision-support software in primary care nurse-led telephone triage: Interactional dilemmas and conversational consequences," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 36-47.
    2. Pilnick, Alison & Dingwall, Robert, 2011. "On the remarkable persistence of asymmetry in doctor/patient interaction: A critical review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(8), pages 1374-1382, April.
    3. Mead, Nicola & Bower, Peter, 2000. "Patient-centredness: a conceptual framework and review of the empirical literature," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 51(7), pages 1087-1110, October.
    4. Barry, Christine A. & Stevenson, Fiona A. & Britten, Nicky & Barber, Nick & Bradley, Colin P., 2001. "Giving voice to the lifeworld. More humane, more effective medical care? A qualitative study of doctor-patient communication in general practice," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 487-505, August.
    5. Koenig, Christopher J., 2011. "Patient resistance as agency in treatment decisions," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(7), pages 1105-1114, April.
    6. Franklin, Marika & Lewis, Sophie & Willis, Karen & Rogers, Anne & Venville, Annie & Smith, Lorraine, 2019. "Goals for living with a chronic condition: The relevance of temporalities, dispositions, and resources," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 233(C), pages 13-20.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Paulus, Trena M. & Grubbs, Heather & Rice-Moran, Renee & Lester, Jessica N., 2023. "How student healthcare providers in a communication skills course respond to standardized patient resistance," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 337(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. May, Carl & Rapley, Tim & Moreira, Tiago & Finch, Tracy & Heaven, Ben, 2006. "Technogovernance: Evidence, subjectivity, and the clinical encounter in primary care medicine," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(4), pages 1022-1030, February.
    2. Greenfield, Geva & Pliskin, Joseph S. & Feder-Bubis, Paula & Wientroub, Shlomo & Davidovitch, Nadav, 2012. "Patient–physician relationships in second opinion encounters – The physicians’ perspective," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(7), pages 1202-1212.
    3. Jennifer Chamberlain-Salaun & Kim Usher & Jane Mills, 2020. "Outsiders in the Experts’ World: A Grounded Theory Study of Consumers and the Social World of Health Care," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(1), pages 21582440209, January.
    4. Toerien, Merran, 2021. "When do patients exercise their right to refuse treatment? A conversation analytic study of decision-making trajectories in UK neurology outpatient consultations," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 290(C).
    5. Hardman, Doug & Geraghty, Adam W.A. & Lown, Mark & Bishop, Felicity L., 2020. "Subjunctive medicine: Enacting efficacy in general practice," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    6. Lo, Ming-Cheng Miriam & Bahar, Roxana, 2013. "Resisting the colonization of the lifeworld? Immigrant patients' experiences with co-ethnic healthcare workers," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 68-76.
    7. Fraser, Suzanne & Fomiatti, Renae & Moore, David & Seear, Kate & Aitken, Campbell, 2020. "Is another relationship possible? Connoisseurship and the doctor–patient relationship for men who consume performance and image-enhancing drugs," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 246(C).
    8. Smailhodzic, Edin & Boonstra, Albert & Langley, David J., 2021. "Social media enabled interactions in healthcare: Towards a taxonomy," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 291(C).
    9. Hyojung Tak & Gregory Ruhnke & Ya-Chen Shih, 2015. "The Association between Patient-Centered Attributes of Care and Patient Satisfaction," The Patient: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research, Springer;International Academy of Health Preference Research, vol. 8(2), pages 187-197, April.
    10. Rathert, Cheryl & Mittler, Jessica N. & Vogus, Timothy J. & Lee, Yuna S.H., 2023. "Better outcomes through patient – Provider therapeutic connections? An exploratory study of proposed mediating variables," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 338(C).
    11. France Légaré & Annette M. O'Connor & Ian D. Graham & Georges A. Wells & Stéphane Tremblay, 2006. "Impact of the Ottawa Decision Support Framework on the Agreement and the Difference between Patients' and Physicians' Decisional Conflict," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 26(4), pages 373-390, July.
    12. Mitchell, Ellen M.H. & Kwizera, Amata & Usta, Momade & Gebreselassie, Hailemichael, 2010. "Choosing early pregnancy termination methods in Urban Mozambique," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 62-70, July.
    13. Manzer, Jamie L. & Bell, Ann V., 2022. "The limitations of patient-centered care: The case of early long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) removal," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 292(C).
    14. Weiste, Elina & Peräkylä, Anssi & Valkeapää, Taina & Savander, Enikö & Hintikka, Jukka, 2018. "Institutionalised otherness: Patients references to psychiatric diagnostic categories," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 207(C), pages 71-79.
    15. Ishikawa, Hirono & Hashimoto, Hideki & Kiuchi, Takahiro, 2013. "The evolving concept of “patient-centeredness” in patient–physician communication research," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 147-153.
    16. Nor Azmaniza Azizam & Siti Noorsuriani Maon & Leny Suzana & Nor Intan Shamimi Abdul Aziz, 2018. "Factors Influencing Selected Health Outcome among Patients Attending Universiti Teknologi MARA Medical Centre," International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, vol. 8(7), pages 500-511, July.
    17. Tate, Alexandra, 2020. "Invoking death: How oncologists discuss a deadly outcome," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 246(C).
    18. Llanwarne, Nadia & Newbould, Jennifer & Burt, Jenni & Campbell, John L. & Roland, Martin, 2017. "Wasting the doctor's time? A video-elicitation interview study with patients in primary care," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 113-122.
    19. Bernardi, Roberta & Wu, Philip F., 2022. "Online health communities and the patient-doctor relationship: An institutional logics perspective," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 314(C).
    20. Christina Johnson & Susan Wilhelmsson & Sussanne Börjeson & Malou Lindberg, 2015. "Improvement of communication and interpersonal competence in telenursing – development of a self‐assessment tool," Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(11-12), pages 1489-1501, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:256:y:2020:i:c:s0277953620302598. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.