Reasoning about reasoning - using recall to unveil clinical reasoning in stroke rehabilitation teams

The study objective was to investigate how health care providers in stroke teams reason about their clinical reasoning process in collaboration with the patient and next of kin.

An explorative qualitative design using stimulated recall was employed. Audio-recordings from three rehabilitation dialogs were used as prompts in interviews with the involved staff about their clinical reasoning. A thematic analysis approach was employed.

A main finding was the apparent friction between profession-centered and person-centered clinical reasoning, which was salient in the data. Five themes were identified: the importance of different perspectives for a rich picture and well-informed decisions; shared understanding in analysis and decision-making - good intentions but difficult to achieve; the health care providers' expertise directs the dialog; the context's impact on the rehabilitation dialog; and insights about missed opportunities to grasp the patient perspective and arrive at decisions.

Interprofessional stroke teams consider clinical reasoning as a process valuing patient and next of kin perspectives; however, their professional expertise risks preventing individual needs from surfacing. There is a discrepancy between professionals' intentions for person-centeredness and how clinical reasoning plays out. Stimulated recall can unveil person-centered practice and enhance professionals' awareness of their clinical reasoning.