Related Experiment Videos
Metaphorically transmitted diseases. How do patients embody medical explanations?
1Institute of General Practice, University of Aarhus, Denmark.
Family Practice
|August 1, 1997
Summary
Patients use personal metaphors and an "ethnomechanics" understanding to interpret medical explanations, rather than detailed scientific concepts. Recognizing these imaginative resources is key for effective doctor-patient communication.
Area of Science:
- Medical Sociology
- Cognitive Linguistics
- Patient Communication
Background:
- Patient understanding of illness is shaped by embodied experiences and metaphorical thinking.
- Patients utilize personal metaphors to structure and comprehend medical explanations.
- This study explores how patients' metaphors influence their interpretation of doctor's explanations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate patient comprehension of pathoanatomical and pathophysiological explanations in general practice.
- To identify the extent to which patients understand scientific illness explanations.
Main Methods:
- Qualitative study involving interviews with general practice patients.
- Analysis of patient narratives to identify and classify metaphors for bodily problems.
- Characterization of a prevalent mechanical body understanding as 'ethnomechanics'.
Main Results:
- All interviewed patients exhibited an 'ethnomechanical' understanding of the body.
- Patients relate to scientific disease models but not intricate details.
- Patients integrate medical information with pre-existing, metaphor-driven understanding.
Conclusions:
- Doctors should acknowledge patients' imaginative and experiential frameworks for understanding illness.
- Radically diverging from patient metaphors can lead to communication breakdown.
- Respecting patients' sense-making resources is crucial for effective medical communication.