BACKGROUND
Online “Ask the doctor” (AtD) services are gaining popularity rapidly, as patients and caregivers can ask questions to medical professionals and receive advice without going through the hassles of visiting local hospitals or doctors’ offices. Unlike Q&A platform, the instant messaging type of “AtD” makes patient-doctor communication much deeper and faster. However, the communication patterns and remaining challenges of this tool are less well understood.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to (1) study how the patients and the doctors conduct a dialogue through instant messaging via the "AtD" service, (2) identify several issues and remaining challenges in this new communication.
METHODS
We conducted a qualitative analysis on the dialogues and the patients’ reviews from a Chinese “AtD” apps which named “Chunyu doctor”. Dialogue can reflect both the patient’s and the doctor’s perspectives, and the patient’s reviews are a supplement which can provide more information to analyze communication problems. We used discourse analysis to interpret dialogues between patients and doctors, and used thematic analysis method to identify themes from both dialogues and patient complaints.
RESULTS
Two general communication patterns between patients and doctors in the “AtD” service were identified, including single session and multiple session. Single session means the conversations between the patient and the doctor are in a consecutive time, while in the dialogue of multiple sessions pattern, the patient usually sends a follow-up message after a long time. Common patterns in single session and different scenarios of sending follow-up messages are also summarized to better understand. Moreover, we also summarized 6 unique challenges of the “AtD” service, including (1) inefficient communication in the initial stage, (2) unfinished conversation in the ending stage, (3) communication is perceived as real-time by the patients, not by the doctors, (4) drawbacks of voice messages, (5) verge of the illegal behaviors, and (6) consultation is not worth the payment.
CONCLUSIONS
The “AtD” service closed several gaps between the patients and the doctors. However, barriers such as different cognition, cost-effectiveness, ethical problems need to be further discussed and resolved.