Symptom assessment and patient resistance in primary care interactions in Chinese hospitals

Authors

  • Lin Wu Loughborough University/Shandong University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/eap.34693

Keywords:

conversation analysis, pragmatics of description, chinese primary care, diagnosis, resistance

Abstract

In a study of primary care consultations in Chinese western-style medicine, two recurrent interactional patterns have been identified which are associated with making medical assessments. At various points in a consultation, the clinician may indicate that the patient’s symptoms are ‘normal’ and that nothing is medically concerning or problematic. The patient may resist that by representing her condition as being in some fashion abnormal. By contrast, when the clinician considers the patient’s symptoms as abnormal, i.e. indicating a medical abnormality and worthy of medical care (i.e. doctorable), the patient may resist by normalising her symptoms. Through analysing doctors’ symptomatic accounts and patients’ resisting talk, ‘symptom abnormality’ emerges as the central form of expression at moments in which doctors and patients are misaligned in their diagnostic reasoning.

Author Biography

  • Lin Wu, Loughborough University/Shandong University

    Lin Wu is a lecturer in the School of Foreign Languages and Literature at Shandong University, China. She is currently doing her PhD, under the supervision of Professor Paul Drew, in the Department of Social Sciences at Loughborough University, UK. Her PhD research is on primary care interactions in Chinese public hospitals.

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Published

2017-11-29

How to Cite

Wu, L. (2017). Symptom assessment and patient resistance in primary care interactions in Chinese hospitals. East Asian Pragmatics, 2(2), 259-288. https://doi.org/10.1558/eap.34693