Analysing Peer Support in Oncologic Self-Help Groups Meetings

In the last decades, literature on doctor-patient communication described and promoted an interaction more centred on patients as persons and on their care needs (Castro et al., 2016; Epstein & Street, 2007; Mead & Bower, 2000), also in order to encourage their treatment acceptance and to improve their quality of life (Blanch-Hartigan et al., 2016; Maynard 2003, 2005; Heritage et al., 2007). However, patients’ unmet concerns are still a recurring but less known aspect of medical communication, especially in oncologic contexts (Sanson-Fisher et al., 2000). This paper presents some of the main results found within an innovative research project on spontaneous interactions produced during twelve meetings in four oncologic self-help groups. These peer support groups, based in four different hospitals of the region Emilia Romagna (Italy), involved patients, ex-patients or family members. The twofold aim of the research project was: 1) to investigate patients’ needs and concerns connected with the disease and the treatment; 2) to identify the form of communication that facilitate the expression of these needs and concerns within self-help groups. In order to achieve this objective, each meeting was video-recorded following the ethical indications of EC and then transcribed using a simplified version of the Conversation Analysis conventions of transcription (Jefferson 2004). Data analysis combined a constructivist approach of communication (Luhmann 1995) with studies on dialogue (Abramovitch & Schwartz 1996; Bohm 1996; Gergen et al 2001; Littlejohn 2004; Pearce & Pearce 2003) and studies on narratives (Baker 2006; Bamberg 2006; Georgakopoulou 2007; Halkowski 2006, Norrick 2007, Waring 2009). The main outcomes presented and discussed in this paper refer to some recurring dialogic actions produced by peers within interactions, which were observed and identified as effective in facilitating participants’ personal expressions and supporting narratives of unmet concerns, while discussing diagnosis, treatment and doctors’ approach during the care process.