Use of Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication in First Encounters

Abstract

Objective: The patient’s initial problem presentation in the first dental consultation provides an opportunity for dentists to recognize individual needs and begin to establish a therapeutic relationship. To achieve these goals, understanding how patients report their oral problems is crucial but this aspect is relatively under-explored in dental communication. This qualitative study identifies how patients routinely present oral concerns in initial consultations. Methods: 70 initial dental consultations from the primary care unit in a dental teaching hospital in Hong Kong were recorded, transcribed, and sequentially analysed. Analysis of videos and transcripts of patient problem presentation episodes were undertaken to identify presentational modes.

Results: Whilst all oral problems were conversationally achieved, two presentation types were identified across the corpus of recordings. The most frequent type was gestural+talk (87%, n=61) as characterized by patients indicating specific oral problem sites using a finger or hand with the corresponding explanation. The remaining 13% (n=9) of cases belonged to verbal whereby patients presented their oral problems to their dentists through talk only.

Conclusion: Patients tend to present their initial oral problems by gestures. To enhance the quality of dentist-patient communication, dentists need to attend to patients’ non-verbal signals during talk in clinical encounters.