Constructing elderly patients’ agency through conversational storytelling

Dongyi Zhu

doi:10.1515/lingvan-2024-0007

Artikel

Constructing elderly patients’ agency through conversational storytelling

Dongyi Zhu

Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 27. September 2024

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Aus der Zeitschrift Linguistics Vanguard Band 10 Heft 1

Abstract

Conversational storytelling in doctor–patient interactions has become an important channel for doctors to understand patients’ experiences of health and illness. This study explores how storytelling is used as a resource to influence patient’s agency in history-taking, especially in the sequential development of elderly Chinese patients’ storytelling. The study draws on 39 conversations with four doctors and twelve elderly patients. Examples are selected from five contrasting extracts to see how elderly Chinese patients employ storytelling to reveal agency accomplished in doctor–patient interaction, especially among the patients’ orienting to the “sick role”. By specifying the agency engagement, this study also helps us appreciate that doctors should be encouraged to attend to patients’ storytelling and assert patients’ agency as ways to attend to their concerns and come to a deeper understanding of their conditions, to facilitate holistic medical encounters.

摘要

医患互动中的故事讲述是医生了解患者健康和疾病经历的重要渠道。本研究探讨了如何将会话中的故事讲述作为一种话语资源来影响患者在病史采集中的能动性, 尤其关注中国老年患者故事讲述的序列发展问题。本研究参考了四位医生和十二位老年患者进行的 39 次会话, 文中语例是从中摘选的五个对比较为鲜明的片段, 旨在了解中国老年患者如何利用故事讲述来揭示其在医患互动中的能动性, 尤其是患者对“病人角色”的定位对能动性的影响。此外, 本研究还帮助我们认识到, 应鼓励医生关注患者故事讲述所反映出的能动性, 以此理解患者关切, 深入了解患者病情, 从而促进更有效的医患互动。

Keywords: elderly patient; conversational storytelling; patient agency; history-taking; Chinese

关键词: 老年患者; 会话故事讲述; 患者能动性; 病史采集; 中国（的）

Corresponding author: Dongyi Zhu, Department of English, School of International Studies, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an, China, E-mail: zhudy2018@snnu.edu.cn

Funding source: National Social Science Fund of China

Award Identifier / Grant number: 21FYYB012

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Professor Guodong Yu for his valuable suggestions and comments on this article as a whole, and Professor Liangping Lan for his suggestions and encouragement. The author would also like to thank the editors and the anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. The author alone remains entirely responsible for its contents.

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