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Systematically reviewing and synthesizing evidence from conversation analytic and related discursive research to inform healthcare communication practice and policy: an illustrated guide

Parry, Ruth H.; Land, Victoria

Systematically reviewing and synthesizing evidence from conversation analytic and related discursive research to inform healthcare communication practice and policy: an illustrated guide Thumbnail


Authors

Ruth H. Parry

Victoria Land



Abstract

Background

Healthcare delivery is largely accomplished in and through conversations between people, and healthcare quality and effectiveness depend enormously upon the communication practices employed within these conversations. An important body of evidence about these practices has been generated by conversation analysis and related discourse analytic approaches, but there has been very little systematic reviewing of this evidence.

Methods

We developed an approach to reviewing evidence from conversation analytic and related discursive research through the following procedures:

• reviewing existing systematic review methods and our own prior experience of applying these

• clarifying distinctive features of conversation analytic and related discursive work which must be taken into account when reviewing

• holding discussions within a review advisory team that included members with expertise in healthcare research, conversation analytic research, and systematic reviewing

• attempting and then refining procedures through conducting an actual review which examined evidence about how people talk about difficult future issues including illness progression and dying

Results

We produced a step-by-step guide which we describe here in terms of eight stages, and which we illustrate from our ‘Review of Future Talk’. The guide incorporates both established procedures for systematic reviewing, and new techniques designed for working with conversation analytic evidence.

Conclusions

The guide is designed to inform systematic reviews of conversation analytic and related discursive evidence on specific domains and topics. Whilst we designed it for reviews that aim at informing healthcare practice and policy, it is flexible and could be used for reviews with other aims, for instance those aiming to underpin research programmes and projects. We advocate systematically reviewing conversation analytic and related discursive findings using this approach in order to translate them into a form that is credible and useful to healthcare practitioners, educators and policy-makers.

Citation

Parry, R. H., & Land, V. (2013). Systematically reviewing and synthesizing evidence from conversation analytic and related discursive research to inform healthcare communication practice and policy: an illustrated guide. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 13(May), Article 13. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2288-13-69

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date May 30, 2013
Deposit Date Apr 1, 2014
Publicly Available Date Apr 1, 2014
Journal BMC Medical Research Methodology
Electronic ISSN 1471-2288
Publisher Springer Verlag
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 13
Issue May
Article Number 13
DOI https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2288-13-69
Keywords Systematic review, Conversation analysis, Discourse analysis, Health care, Quality appraisal, Methodology
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/714827
Publisher URL http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2288/13/69

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