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Conversational strategies with parents of newly diagnosed leukaemic children: An analysis of 4880 conversational turns

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Abstract

Goals of work

Communication with parents of children newly diagnosed with cancer poses a number of problems, mostly due to the psychological effects of parental trauma. This study was designed to answer the following questions: How can we sustain the flow of communication with parents of children newly diagnosed with leukaemia so that it may become easier and more effective? What should we say to gather more reliable information from parents? How can we help empower their coping strategies?

Patients and methods

We analysed 4880 conversational turns in individual conversations carried out between psychologists and 21 parents of children with leukaemia. The conversations were aimed at gathering information of the families’ daily routines. Dialogues were audiotaped and fully transcribed. The type and frequency of speech acts present in each turn were coded along 18 categories by two independent judges (inter-rater agreement, Cohen Kappa =0.73).

Main results

The parental speech acts expressing emotion in various ways go up to 58% of the total number of their speech acts. The lag-sequential analysis showed that such expressions are not associated with any of the interviewer’s speech act. The same analysis showed that, by contrast, the interviewer’s style has an effect upon the cognitive aspects of parents’ conversation. Support of hope favoured parental ability to identify their coping strategies. Explicit requests, confirmations such as “sure” and key words summarizing parents’ viewpoints are followed by parental factual and objective narratives.

Conclusions

Based on these results, a few practical recommendations for health care professionals are given in order to better communicate with parents of children newly diagnosed with cancer.

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Acknowledgements

Supported by a grant from the Department of Pediatrics, University of Padua Foundation, “City of Hope”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padua, via Venezia 8, 35131, Padova, Italy

    Sara Scrimin, Giovanna Axia & Luigi Zanesco

  2. Clinic of Paediatric Onco-hematology, Department of Pediatrics, University of Padua, Italy

    Marta Tremolada, Marta Pillon & Fabia Capello

Authors
  1. Sara Scrimin
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  2. Giovanna Axia
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  3. Marta Tremolada
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  4. Marta Pillon
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  5. Fabia Capello
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  6. Luigi Zanesco
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Correspondence to Giovanna Axia.

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Scrimin, S., Axia, G., Tremolada, M. et al. Conversational strategies with parents of newly diagnosed leukaemic children: An analysis of 4880 conversational turns. Support Care Cancer 13, 287–294 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-004-0679-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-004-0679-1

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