Mapping interpersonal communication between pediatricians and mothers: understandings, interdependencies and gaps

Interpersonal communication between pediatricians and mothers is both complex and interdependent. The mother is dependent on the pediatrician for her child's wellbeing and care along expertise-related dimensions for which she cannot provide. The pediatrician is dependent on the mother's ability to provide accurate information about the child's health and habits, so that the doctor, who has limited time with the child, is able to make continuing accurate diagnoses. This paper seeks to provide a basic understanding of interpersonal mis-/communication between mothers and pediatricians, a complex area which has not heretofore been mapped in the contemporary Indian context. Therefore, the paper presents a small-scale exploratory qualitative study based on in-depth interviews with both doctors and mothers in the city of Kolkata (Calcutta), India. It focuses on providing an understanding of the factors that may enable or disenable instrumental or relational communication in the mother-pediatrician situation. Four major themes emerge from the data: first, the shifting borders of information between pediatricians and parents; second, the respective roles of verbal and non-verbal communication in the consultation; third, a tension between the traditional and the modern; and fourth, understandings of professional and interpersonal relationship in the context of responsibility for a child.