Risk as knowledge or knowledge as risk? Parental perceptions and coping with newborns medically defined "at high risk"

Risk discourse has gained recognition as prominent and inherent component present in medical practitioners and patients discourse. Medical practitioners often hesitate on the right mode of provision of medical information to patients or primary caregivers. The complex dilemma of perception of medical information was studied in a prospective, mixed-methods study with 145 families of 181 newborns at high [health] risk, Jewish (41) and Bedouin (104), all residents of the Negev region in Southern Israel)., . In this the paper I analyze parental responses to the perceived risk of their infants during the process of discharge from birth hospitalization, and after the first year of life of their newborns. Parents showed various patterns of resistance to threatening information about what they perceived to be a vulnerable health condition of their babies condition, sometimes, amid medical prognosis. The paper discusses the modes by which risk discourse is handled by parents as a tense continuum between knowledge as an instrumental asset in care giving, and knowledge as an additional risk factor and an obstacle to care giving. In expanding the understanding of the impact of parental perceived risk and of the coping patterns with medical information, the paper aims to contribute to the improvement of patient-doctor communication, along with ameliorating parental competency.