Communication in Telehealth: A State-of-the-Art Literature Review of Conversation-Analytic Research

ABSTRACT

We provide a state-of-the-art review of research on conversation analysis and telehealth. We conducted a systematic review of the literature, focusing on studies that investigate how technology is procedurally consequential for the interaction. We discerned three key topics: the interactional organization, the therapeutic relationship, and the clinical activities of the encounter. The literature on telehealth is highly heterogeneous, with significant differences between text-based care (e.g., via chat or e-mail) and audio(visual) care (e.g., via telephone or video). We discuss the extent to which remote care can be regarded as a demarcated field for study or whether the medium is merely part of the “context,” particularly when investigating hybrid and polymedia forms of care involving multiple technological media.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2024.2305045

Notes

¹ Hybrid is used in health policy and practice to indicate a mix of in-person care and telehealth. Polymedia derives from anthropology to reflect how people use different technological media for specific types of interactional encounters (Madianou & Miller, 2012).

² Here we focus on the institutional organization of openings, where participants move from preliminaries to the business at hand (Heath, 1981). Other papers also address the opening of remote healthcare encounters, but focus on the interactional organization (e.g., establishing shared attention). We discuss these papers in our section on Interactional Organization of Remote Healthcare.

³ This is partially a consideration for Review Ethics Committees, who have limited to no experience with qualitative studies of remote interaction, but researchers will also need to make their own assessments.

Additional information

Funding

Lucas Seuren and Sara Shaw are supported by the National Institute for Health and care Research (NIHR) Policy Research Programme [project reference NIHR202067]. Sara Shaw is also supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research [grant reference: 132807] and the NIHR School for Primary Care Research [grant reference: 594]. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care. Sakari Ilomäki is supported by the Strategic Research Council (SRC) established within the Academy of Finland [grant references: 335288 and 336277].