Recent advances in ICT have given rise to new opportunities and challenges in patient-centered practices (e.g. telehealth providers). Q&A expert services represent an effective paradigm of computer-mediated discourse of healthcare, affording a participatory virtual environment in which laypeople can seek and receive expert advice (Maglie, 2015). With reference to these platforms, asynchronicity and dissociative anonymity of questions (Q-posts) contribute to the online disinhibition effect (Suler, 2004), while correspondence of answers (A-posts) may indicate interpersonal connection and democratization of expertise among e-patients (Plastina, 2015; Tessuto, 2015). Further factors involved in e-health delivery have been extensively examined by interdisciplinary studies, from human sciences to corpus linguistics (Baker & McEnery, 2015; Brookes, Harvey & Mullany, 2018). The present work aims to investigate both corpus and discourse of sexual and reproductive health and appraise how “healthy communication” can affect attitudes among young people asking e-healthcare providers for advice and information. To this purpose, we selected as a dataset the complete sample of Q&A posts of a sexuality information service specifically designed by IU Bloomington. We used a third-generation tool to run a mixed- method analysis of collected data (238,020 running words). The combined approach provides the double advantage of detecting quantitative occurrence of qualitative discursive patterns and clusters, and exploring their context of occurrence. In view of these methodological premises, our poster presents quantitative and qualitative evidence and provides a broader outlo ok on linguistic and narrative elements characterizing patient-doctor virtual scenario to prevent high-risk sexual behaviour. Indeed, corpus-based findings show that Q-posts focus on sexual activity (>4,39%) and body issues (>1,25%), while A-posts include delayed feedbacks about sex (>2,98%) and relationships (>2,78%) in which the frequent use of personal pronouns and mixed register vocabulary acknowledge a patient-oriented perspective. Discourse-based findings suggest the following final remarks: (1) the “ask an expert” format is particularly successful at eliciting intimate self- disclosure from young users; (2) concerns and doubts among seekers can also result from misinformation; (3) confidential advice effectively encourage consensual safe sex, body acceptance and critical reflection on STIs and unwanted pregnancies; (4) multimodal and/or critical discourse analyses could further investigate involvement in communication exchanges.
Combining Corpus Linguistics and Discourse Analysis to examine Q&As on sexual and reproductive health
Chiara Abbatantuono;Rosita Maglie
2018-01-01
Abstract
Recent advances in ICT have given rise to new opportunities and challenges in patient-centered practices (e.g. telehealth providers). Q&A expert services represent an effective paradigm of computer-mediated discourse of healthcare, affording a participatory virtual environment in which laypeople can seek and receive expert advice (Maglie, 2015). With reference to these platforms, asynchronicity and dissociative anonymity of questions (Q-posts) contribute to the online disinhibition effect (Suler, 2004), while correspondence of answers (A-posts) may indicate interpersonal connection and democratization of expertise among e-patients (Plastina, 2015; Tessuto, 2015). Further factors involved in e-health delivery have been extensively examined by interdisciplinary studies, from human sciences to corpus linguistics (Baker & McEnery, 2015; Brookes, Harvey & Mullany, 2018). The present work aims to investigate both corpus and discourse of sexual and reproductive health and appraise how “healthy communication” can affect attitudes among young people asking e-healthcare providers for advice and information. To this purpose, we selected as a dataset the complete sample of Q&A posts of a sexuality information service specifically designed by IU Bloomington. We used a third-generation tool to run a mixed- method analysis of collected data (238,020 running words). The combined approach provides the double advantage of detecting quantitative occurrence of qualitative discursive patterns and clusters, and exploring their context of occurrence. In view of these methodological premises, our poster presents quantitative and qualitative evidence and provides a broader outlo ok on linguistic and narrative elements characterizing patient-doctor virtual scenario to prevent high-risk sexual behaviour. Indeed, corpus-based findings show that Q-posts focus on sexual activity (>4,39%) and body issues (>1,25%), while A-posts include delayed feedbacks about sex (>2,98%) and relationships (>2,78%) in which the frequent use of personal pronouns and mixed register vocabulary acknowledge a patient-oriented perspective. Discourse-based findings suggest the following final remarks: (1) the “ask an expert” format is particularly successful at eliciting intimate self- disclosure from young users; (2) concerns and doubts among seekers can also result from misinformation; (3) confidential advice effectively encourage consensual safe sex, body acceptance and critical reflection on STIs and unwanted pregnancies; (4) multimodal and/or critical discourse analyses could further investigate involvement in communication exchanges.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
