The Use of Humor to Promote Patient-centered Care

Abstract

Medical practitioners and scholars are increasingly seeing the need for patient-centered care (PCC) which emphasizes both medical and emotional needs, patients’ reasons for seeking care, and the enhancement of the patient–provider relationship. This ethnographic report examines the use of humor as a means to promote PCC within a hospital unit designed to encourage therapeutic humor. The three distinct themes emerging from this study have implications regarding the use of humor to help facilitate PCC. The three themes are (a) taking a complete patient profile, (b) freeing patients from the label of “bad patient,” and (c) de-emphasizing power disparities.

Keywords:

• Patient-centered Care
• Humor
• Therapeutic Humor
• Ethnography

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2003 Western States Communication Association annual conference in Salt Lake City, UT

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2003 Western States Communication Association annual conference in Salt Lake City, UT

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank the staff and patients of the Medical Institute for Recovery Through Humor for allowing her access into their community. The author also thanks Patrick C. Hughes, Nancy J. Eckstein, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments and helpful guidance on earlier versions of this manuscript.

Notes

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2003 Western States Communication Association annual conference in Salt Lake City, UT

1. The three scales cited are the Euro-communication Rating Scale (Mead & Bower, 2000), the Roter Interaction Analysis System (RIAS; Roter, 1993), and the Henbest and Stewart method (Henbest & Stewart, 1989, 1990).

2. I talked to two male patients (one Caucasian stroke patient and one African-American diabetic who was recuperating from a foot amputation) during activity sessions about their experiences as MIRTH patients. The questions I asked them were part of the small talk in which we engaged, rather than part of a semi-structured interview. Because these conversations were not consistent with the structure of the other interviews, and because I did not obtain permission ahead of time for these informal interviews, I did not count them among my more structured interviews.

3. I did find a limited number of occasions when patients asked providers for information (e.g., regarding their personal lives). However, such instances were infrequent and nonrepetitive, and did not warrant a category of their own.

4. “GG” and other codes are pseudonyms assigned to the caregivers and patients within MIRTH. Because confidentiality was assured for all participants, the actual names of individuals cannot be given.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Juliann C. Scholl

Juliann C. Scholl (Ph.D., University of Oklahoma) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Texas Tech University