Family Practice Advance Access originally published online on June 17, 2008
Family Practice 2008 25(4):304-311; doi:10.1093/fampra/cmn029
Health communication and adolescents: what do their emails tell us?
a School of English Studies, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RG
b Division of Primary Care, Medical School, Queens Medical Centre, Nottingham NG7 2UH
c School of Nursing, University of Nottingham, Derbyshire Royal Infirmary, Derby DE1 2QY
d School of Applied Social Sciences, De Montfort University, Leicester LE1 9BH
e Independent International Consultant in the Strategic Planning of Child and Adolescent Health Services, Oxfordshire
f Department of Primary Health Care, University of Oxford OX3 7LF, UK
Correspondence to Kevin Harvey; email: kevin.harvey{at}nottingham.ac.uk
Received 1 October 2007; Accepted 18 May 2008.
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Abstract |
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Background. It is widely known that barriers exist in communication between adolescents and health professionals. However, little is known about the actual language used by young people articulating such difficulties and whether email might allow them to overcome these problems.
Objectives. The aims of this study were to investigate concerns and difficulties relating to communication among adolescents seeking online health advice.
Methods. The study design was a corpus linguistic analysis of a million-word adolescent health email database based on 62 794 emails from young people requesting health advice from a prominent UK-hosted and doctor-led website.
Results. Young people reported various concerns about their health. They described numerous difficulties in disclosing such concerns to other people, in particular to parents and doctors. However, they readily expressed their concerns by email, displaying elevated levels of directness, particularly in relation to potentially sensitive or embarrassing topics.
Conclusion. Email has the potential to facilitate and supplement face-to-face consultations with health professionals. Increased adoption of email by health providers may be an efficient means of engaging with a generation often reluctant to access more traditional health care services and thus encourage them to enter the primary care setting more readily.
Keywords. Adolescents, communication, corpus linguistics, doctor–patient relationship, email, Internet, primary care.
Harvey K, Churchill D, Crawford P, Brown B, Mullany L, Macfarlane A and McPherson A. Health communication and adolescents: what do their emails tell us? Family Practice 2008; 25: 304–311.
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