COM 203 minipaper
mark44
COM203_Week13_Session2_Fall2017.pptxCOM 203: Introduction to Communication
Week 13, Day 2
1
Agenda
Discuss social support, healthcare organizations and health campaigns
Reminders:
Quiz 4 and Paper 4 on 12/12; review sheet will be provided
Options for paper are Weeks 11-14, Ch. 13, 14 or readings on gender communication
Final exam on Thursday, 12/21 at 10am; review sheet will be provided
Types of Support
Forms of support that individuals seek from others:
Instrumental: tangible types of assistance
Example: Driving someone to the airport
Emotional: Listening to troubles, “being there”
Example: Hugs, empathy
Esteem/Appraisal: Legitimizing problems, express
confidence
Example: “You can do this!”
Informational: Providing information
Example: Cancer support website
Support groups offer a sense of social networking
Often impact individuals through support behaviors and communication
3
Types of Support
Enacted Support – communication can facilitate beneficial outcomes when facing stress (e.g., advice)
Companionship – elevate moods, enjoyment, not a “social obligation”
Proactive vs. reactive social support – thinking ahead vs. reacting to news
Support and Coping
Types of coping:
Problem focused coping: remedying a threatening or harmful situation
Emotional focused coping: venting frustrations or emotional response
Avoidance focused coping: attempt to disengage mentally
In an effort to deal with problematic health issues and stress, individuals will often use social networks (social support) as a form of coping
5
Support Groups
Definition: A collection of individuals who are gathered due to a common interest (or health concern)
opportunity to see others like themselves in person and hear them talk
access to touching or other nonverbal support
opportunities for informal social time
finding others to connect with socially outside of group or for extra support.
Evidence suggests that the
simple act of helping others in
a support group benefits the helpers
as much as it does the recipients of
their help.
6
Support Groups
Support groups very greatly on a number of levels:
Affiliation
Format
Facilitation
Focus
Affiliation: support groups can be created maintained in conjunction with a health organization (hospital), independently, or with special interest groups/companies
Format: groups can vary whether they are weekly meetings face to face, over the internet via chat rooms/blogs, or part of a larger program in a specific facility (intensive rehab program)
Facilitation: Are the meetings “run” by a health trained individual, a group leader based on seniority, or completely informal with no specific leadership?
Focus: what is the overall goal? To provide information about a topic, provide emotional support, or both?
7
Types of Comforting Messages
Cognitive Complexity
Intelligence
Experience
Interactive ability
Person centeredness
Low person centered messages (LPC)
Medium person centered messages (MPC)
High person centered messages (HPC)
Burleson (1994, 2009) argues that sophisticated support (usually emotional) is person centered. The effectiveness of communicated support is often based around the ability of the support provider to understand/acknowledge the concerns of the support seeker, and to assist them in making sense of the situation.
- LPC: Deny the other’s feelings and perspective via criticism of their legitimacy. Informing the other how they should act/feel
- MPC: Implicit recognition of other’s feelings and attempts to distract the other from the troubling situation
HPC: Explicitly recognize and legitimize other’s feelings and perspective, and attempts to help the person articulate and expand on these feelings/concerns
***research indicates that use of HPC messages by support providers are often perceived as more sensitive, effective, and positive by support seekers, and often leads to more positive outcomes and decisions.
8
Examples of Support Messages
Highly Person-centered messages:
acknowledge, elaborate on, and validate the feelings and concerns of the distressed person are especially comforting.
Examples of Support Messages (cont).
Moderately person-centered messages:
acknowledge the distressed person’s feelings, but they do not help the distressed person contextualize or elaborate on his or her feelings.
Examples of Support Messages (cont.)
Low person-centeredness messages:
implicitly or explicitly deny the legitimacy of the distressed person’s feelings.
Putting the Pieces Together….
Combining what we have learned about social support, coping, caregiving and more, let’s try to create supportive messages
Example 1
Margie misses the normal times, when people talked to hear about the weather, boys, and school. Now they just hold doors for her and try not to stare at her wheelchair.
What type(s) of social support do you think they need?
What type of coping style are they using?
What would be a high person-centered supportive message? A low person-centered message?
Example 2
Bill is always claiming that he is sick. It seems whatever “bug” is going around campus, Bill says he has it. Today, Bill approaches you and says “I feel really sick. I think I have a fever. I don’t know what I’m going to do, if I have to miss any classes.”
What type(s) of social support do you think they need?
What type of coping style are they using?
What would be a high person-centered supportive message? A low person-centered message?
Types of Healthcare Organizations
Financing and regulating services/products
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Insurance (HMOs and PPOs)/
managed care
Professional organizations
Accreditation
Trade and professional
Healthcare delivery
Depts. of public health, hospice, hospitals, medical groups, nursing homes, physician’s offices, pharma/biotech organizations
Powerful effects
Create environments in which health care is provided and are largely responsible for the tone, quality and timing of health care transactions
Accreditation – Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare organizations (JCAHO), AMA, American Hospital Association, American Nurses Association
Challenges on daily basis to fight costs at micro and macro levels
Impact on Healthcare Communication
Internal Influences
Stress/Conflict
Burnout, low job satisfaction
Role conflict and role ambiguity
Conflicting or unsure about roles (nurse ~ patient advocate ~ “good employee”)
Staffing/Employee Turnaround
Patient/Family member interaction
Emotional labor (trying to be emotionally appropriate)
16
Entertainment-Education
Content designed to educate and to entertain
Mostly educational content, but incidental entertainment value, OR content that is mostly entertaining, but contains educational value.
Government use in many countries to disseminate information via television
Soap operas or telenovelas
Change opinions and behaviors
Entertainment-Education
Center for Disease Control and Prevention
http://www.cdc.gov/healthcommunication/toolstemplates/entertainmented/
Hollywood Health and Society
https://hollywoodhealthandsociety.org/
https :// hollywoodhealthandsociety.org/events/2017-sentinel-awards
Johns Hopkins, Center for Communication Programs
http://ccp.jhu.edu/entertainment-education/
Health Campaigns
Health campaigns focus on a health issue to help “enhance health and well-being, reduce health risks, and prevent disease”
Usually concern public health issues, and population changes
Health Campaigns
Many perspectives with designing health campaigns
Communication, public health, implementation science, health services, behavioral medicine, etc.
Challenge is understanding your audience, and the differences within your audience, while communicating to masses (i.e., populations rather than individual focus)
Often, health campaigns are conducted with follow-up in interpersonal concepts as well
Health Communication Campaigns
The CDC suggests a number of things to consider in implementing a good campaign including:
Define the problem,
Set goals,
analyze your audience,
Pretest the message concept,
Select communication channels
Develop the promotion plan
Implement communication strategies
Evaluate outcomes.
National Cancer Institute created a health campaign book:
https:// www.cancer.gov/publications/health-communication/pink-book.pdf
21
Example Health Campaigns
https :// prevention.nih.gov/prevention-research/phases-prevention-research/public-health-campaigns
Next Time…
Discuss gender communication
Please read the articles on Blackboard
Reminders:
Quiz 4 and Paper 4 on 12/12; review sheet will be provided
Options for paper are Weeks 11-14, Ch. 13, 14 or readings on gender communication
Final exam on Thursday, 12/21 at 10am; review sheet will be provided
23
