Health Communication最新文献

Self-disclosure is critical for individuals with concealable stigmatized conditions, enabling them to gain recognition, understanding, and social support. While prior research has extensively examined whether and why individuals disclose, relatively little attention is paid to what, how, and with whom disclosure occurs. Leveraging large-scale support forum data, this study examined how new parents disclosed depressive episodes online, analyzing four dimensions of self-disclosure (amount, breadth, depth, and valence) alongside four facets of social support (quantity, positivity, responsiveness, and informativeness). The findings reveal nuanced gender differences that haven't been documented in previous research. In the relative anonymity of online discussions, mothers tended to share a broader range of life stressors and discuss each in more depth, while fathers' self-disclosures were longer and more positive but less personal. For mothers, the act of self-disclosure itself was beneficial for mental wellness. Fathers, however, appeared less affected by their own disclosure but more sensitive to the social support they received. Crucially, for both mothers and fathers, social support acts as a key mediator between self-disclosure and resilience, with a notable gender disparity in the impact of informational support. This research contributes a multi-dimensional, gender-sensitive understanding of self-disclosure, offering valuable insights for designing effective intervention and supportive environment for new parents' wellbeing.

Person-centered care is achieved through the approaches taken within consultations with patients. In this study, we aim to better understand strategies surgeons use during consultations to improve patient understanding and acceptance of diagnosis and treatment recommendations. We filmed 32 surgical consultations with three different surgeons at a private orthopedic outpatient clinic in metropolitan Australia. All participants were fluent English speakers and over the age of 18. Twenty-two recordings met the analysis criteria and were analyzed using conversation analysis. One consultation was selected for single-case analysis. Our analysis demonstrates that integrating a diagnosis discussion with treatment recommendations, in the frame of disease progression, works as a person-centered approach, bridging the knowledge gap between doctor and patient in the context of a health condition with limited choice regarding treatment. This case study highlights the potential of an integrated diagnosis-treatment approach to improve patient comprehension and acceptance.

Health-related myths spread rapidly and can have a negative impact not only on individuals, but also on public health. In the present research, we aim to investigate the extent to which the effectiveness of debunking health misinformation with the truth sandwich text format depends on the source delivering the correction. Further, we examined whether source trustworthiness and psychological reactance mediate this effect. We conducted two pre-registered experimental studies with samples representative of the German population in terms of gender and age (total N = 2,684). In the context of a hypothetical online information search on the topics of vaccines (Study 1) or nutrition (Study 2), participants' exposure to the corrective information to one of several selected myths and its source (general practitioner vs. health institution vs. company) was varied. The main dependent variable was health myth agreement after debunking. We found that the prevalence of vaccine myths was rather low, which methodologically limited our debunking efforts. For nutrition myths, the debunking was successful, and all sources were able to debunk misinformation, as there was no evidence for differences in their effectiveness. However, we found a significant indirect effect of source on myth agreement after debunking, mediated in serial by source trustworthiness and psychological reactance. This research indicates that the effect of the source in a truth sandwich seems to be less important if the debunking message is carefully formulated. However, the characteristics of the source can still exert an indirect influence on the recipients' response to the message.

Transgender populations face disproportionate health challenges, including elevated mental health risks and limited access to gender-affirming care, compounded by systemic discrimination and stigma. In response, online forums have become critical spaces for health information exchange, peer support, and resilience-building among this population. Within these spaces, individuals negotiate stigma, identity, and care-seeking through shared language and narratives. To understand these dynamics, the present study examines discourse in two Reddit communities, r/transgender and r/transhealth, using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC-22) and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) to analyze emotional tone, analytical thinking, authenticity, clout, and thematic content. Results show that r/transgender discourse often reflects the emotional toll of distal stressors, emphasizing identity negotiation and emotional processing, while r/transhealth features solution-oriented dialogs focused on navigating healthcare systems and sharing affirming care experiences. These findings extend Minority Stress Theory into digital contexts, illustrating how community norms shape coping strategies ranging from emotional validation to practical problem-solving. Insights from this study can inform more empathetic, culturally competent communication between healthcare providers, institutions, and transgender patients to improve trust, engagement, and health outcomes.

Patients are engaging in unprecedented levels of online health information-seeking (e.g., via TikTok, Google). Guided by shared decision-making (SDM) theorizing, this study illuminates health care workers' (HCWs) perspectives of patients' use of online health information in clinical encounters. We identify third-party health information (i.e., health information from beyond a clinical encounter) as a decision-making agent in the SDM process. Applying reflexive thematic analysis to analyze 17 interviews with HCWs, our findings revealed how online health information influences the SDM process by shifting perceptions of decision-making orientation and heightening patients' sense of agency. Our findings also reveal how HCWs navigate SDM when patients use online health information by praising the new-age information economy, promoting mediated health literacy to moderate patient health anxiety, and prioritizing and validating patients' lived experiences. We conclude by discussing implications for SDM and practical implications for HCWs.

Given calls for greater attention to culture in interpersonal health communication research, we interviewed 29 South Asian women between the ages of 18 and 60 managing chronic health issues to explore culturally specific dilemmas in health-related talk within families. Guided by normative rhetorical theory, our findings narrate polysemic meanings of health as generational, communal, and personal. These meanings created dilemmas centered on what it means to care and for whom, with women describing discursive challenges in privileging their own health without dishonoring their (grand)mothers' health experiences, disrupting family harmony, or neglecting their duties and obligations. In response, women adopted different interpretive lenses to embrace the both/and nature of their membership in multiple cultures of care. Findings have implications for interpersonal and health communication theory, highlighting how fractures in cultural norms manifest as discrete interactional dilemmas in everyday communication about health in families.

Although menstruation is a biologically significant part of life, U.S. menstruators struggle with managing their menstrual cycle. One tool developed to aid in this process is the menstrual cup. A menstrual cup is a bell-shaped device, made of medical grade silicone, used to collect menstrual blood, and has been identified as a safe, cost-effective and environmentally beneficial menstrual management tool. Despite its benefits, menstrual cups remain underutilized and under-researched within United States contexts. As such, this study serves as a first step to understand perceptions of menstrual cups by U.S. menstruators. Qualitative responses were collected using Amazon's Mechanical Turk, then thematically analyzed using the extended parallel process model as a guiding framework to understand menstruators' beliefs regarding the product. Findings from N = 341 participants (M = 38.8 years; SD = 9.6) ranging from ages 21 to 75, illustrate the constructs of self-efficacy and response efficacy and were found to align with participant perceptions of advantages and disadvantages of the menstrual cup. Theoretical and practical contributions, including how communication theory can help understand the reasons why people may choose to adopt a new menstrual management tool, are addressed.

Existing research on vaccination communication has emphasized commercial marketing and social mobilization, while culturally attuned approaches remain underexplored. This study examines how the Chinese state moralizes vaccine promotion on social media in emergencies. Using content analysis of 205 government-produced videos and 58 stakeholder interviews, we find that state actors frame vaccination as a civilizational practice that merges Confucian ethics with biomedical rationales. Simultaneously, they harness entertainment affordances that intertwine playful performance, ritualization, and interactivity to amplify affective resonance and foster participatory engagement. This dual strategy reframes vaccination from a solely obligatory act into a socially meaningful, even enjoyable, act. However, we also identify a critical caveat: when moral appeals become excessive, they may reduce message receptivity. Our findings suggest that effective vaccine communication should bound moralization. Specifically, communication can be more effective by focusing on key ethical messages, using supportive, dialogue-oriented tones, and connecting moral narratives with practical guidance. We introduce a bounded moralization framework that reconciles collectivist and individualist orientations, balances entertainment with epistemic authority, and optimizes the communication dynamics between state and society. Practically, this framework offers guidance for designing culturally grounded health campaigns that are both persuasive and respectful of public needs.

The purpose of this study was to explore the clinical experiences and perceptions regarding three talk model shared decision-making (SDM) practices among different specialty of resident physicians in Taiwan. Resident physicians from a teaching hospital in Southern Taiwan were recruited using purposive sampling. In total, 19 residents participated in one-on-one, in-depth, qualitative, and semi-structured interviews regarding their experiences practicing SDM with their patients. Among these residents, five were from internal medicine, five were from surgery, five were from family medicine, and four were from emergency medicine. The results are as follows: (1) Residents' SDM experiences aligned with all three stages of the three talk model. In the Team Talk stage, they emphasized engaging patients and families, especially in complex cases or when family opinions differed, through a three-way dialogue among physicians, patients, and families. (2) In the Option Talk stage, they prioritized explaining treatment options, including benefits, risks, and lifestyle implications, and encouraging patients and families to express concerns and preferences to support informed decisions. (3) In the Decision Talk stage, they highlighted the importance of in-depth communication to understand patient needs and preferences, summarize and confirm information, and reach a shared consensus. (4) SDM practices differed among specialties due to variations in clinical context and time constraints. Consequently, these findings underscore the need for strategies tailored to each specialty. Tailored SDM training and decision-support tools can bridge the theory-practice gap, strengthen physician-patient relationships, and enhance care quality.

As social virtual reality (social VR) platforms increasingly captivate users worldwide, questions arise about how digitally mediated self-representation affects psychological health. This study investigates how avatar characteristics-specifically perceived avatar appearance similarity and perceived attractiveness-shape users' well-being in social VR, with a focus on the mediating role of avatar identification. Drawing on two-wave longitudinal data collected over a three-month period from 486 VRChat users, the findings reveal that perceived avatar attractiveness was positively associated with users' satisfaction with virtual life through enhanced avatar identification. However, perceived similarity did not exert a significant positive influence. Notably, while identification with attractive avatars supported virtual well-being, avatar attractiveness was also negatively associated with self-acceptance, suggesting a complex relationship between virtual self-presentation and mental health outcomes. These results highlight the critical psychological processes through which virtual identity communication is associated with users' well-being and self-perception. This study calls for greater attention within health communication research to the ways avatar-mediated interactions in emerging digital environments can both support and challenge mental health.