Where Trouble Starts: Communication Breakdown in a Complex Emergency Call.

IF 3 3区 医学 Q1 COMMUNICATION
Health Communication Pub Date : 2025-03-01 Epub Date: 2024-06-10 DOI:10.1080/10410236.2024.2346677
Rhona Nattrass, Jennifer Watermeyer
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Emergency calls require efficient communication between caller and call taker to establish a need for assistance and dispatch help quickly. Analyzing communication processes at this first link in the emergency medical care chain has important implications for improving the quality of emergency care across the health system. This paper examines an interaction between a call taker and a caller requesting assistance at the scene of a family murder, using a hybrid interactional sociolinguistic approach to analysis. We also draw from court testimony. We demonstrate how several factors contribute to communication breakdown, prolong the call, and lead to the call taker doubting the credibility of the emergency. These include the caller's inability to frame a believable request for help nor clarify his stance concerning the emergency, an absence of urgency and emotion in his description of the incident, an extended focus on and repair of the incident location, and his dysfluent speech behaviors. We demonstrate how communication breakdown is co-constructed and compounded by system-related trouble. This call has useful implications for call-taker training and highlights that when an interaction goes wrong, it has a cascading effect on health care not only for those patients who need the help urgently but also for the efficient running of the health system as a whole.

问题从哪里开始?复杂紧急呼叫中的通信中断。
紧急呼叫需要呼叫者和接线员之间进行高效沟通,以确定援助需求并迅速派遣救援人员。分析紧急医疗服务链第一环节的沟通过程对于提高整个医疗系统的紧急医疗服务质量具有重要意义。本文采用混合互动社会语言学的分析方法,研究了在一起家庭谋杀案现场,接线员与求助者之间的互动。我们还借鉴了法庭证词。我们展示了几个因素是如何导致沟通中断、延长通话时间并导致接线员怀疑紧急情况的可信度的。这些因素包括来电者无法提出可信的求助,也无法澄清自己对紧急情况的立场,在描述事件时缺乏紧迫感和情感,长时间关注和修复事件地点,以及他的语言表达行为障碍。我们展示了与系统相关的故障是如何共同构建和加剧沟通障碍的。这次通话对接线员的培训具有有益的启示,并强调了当互动出现问题时,不仅对急需帮助的病人,而且对整个医疗系统的有效运行都会产生连带影响。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
8.20
自引率
10.30%
发文量
184
期刊介绍: As an outlet for scholarly intercourse between medical and social sciences, this noteworthy journal seeks to improve practical communication between caregivers and patients and between institutions and the public. Outstanding editorial board members and contributors from both medical and social science arenas collaborate to meet the challenges inherent in this goal. Although most inclusions are data-based, the journal also publishes pedagogical, methodological, theoretical, and applied articles using both quantitative or qualitative methods.
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