Treatment recommendations to parents during pediatric tonsillectomy consultations: A mixed methods analysis of surgeon language

•Treatment recommendation phrasing varies, utilizing strong and passive language.•Clinicians provide more direct recommendations to racial/ethnic minority parents.•Clinicians provide more direct recommendations to low socioeconomic status parents.•Clinicians use more passive language when recommendi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Patient education and counseling 2021-06, Vol.104 (6), p.1371-1379
Main Authors: Links, Anne R., Callon, Wynne, Wasserman, Carly, Beach, Mary Catherine, Ryan, Marisa A., Leu, Grace R., Tunkel, David, Boss, Emily F.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Communication
Nursing
Patient-centered
Pediatrics
Shared decision-making
Tonsillectomy
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Summary:•Treatment recommendation phrasing varies, utilizing strong and passive language.•Clinicians provide more direct recommendations to racial/ethnic minority parents.•Clinicians provide more direct recommendations to low socioeconomic status parents.•Clinicians use more passive language when recommending surgery. A deeper understanding of the dialogue clinicians use to relay treatment recommendations is needed to fully understand their influence on patient decisions about surgery. We characterize how otolaryngologists provide treatment recommendations and suggest a classification framework. We qualitatively analyzed surgeon recommendations from 55 encounters between otolaryngologists and parents of children evaluated for tonsillectomy, and classified recommendation types by phrasing. Multilevel logistic regression identified predictors of recommendation phrasing. Clinicians provided 183 recommendations (mean/visit = 3.3). We identified four domains of recommendation-phrasing (direct, passive, acceptable, parent-oriented). Direct recommendations (n = 68, 37%) included presumptive statements phrasing intentions as inevitable. Passive recommendations (n = 65, 36%) included practice-based recommendations utilizing general statements. Acceptable recommendations (n = 29, 16%) included speaking positively about treatment options. Parent-oriented recommendations (n = 21, 11%) included parent choice statements. Clinicians more commonly made direct recommendations to parents who were racial minorities (OR = 2.7, p = .02, 95% CI [1.7, 5.9]) or had an annual income
ISSN:0738-3991
1873-5134
DOI:10.1016/j.pec.2020.11.015