Maintaining patient autonomy in geriatric triadic medical consultations: A discourse analysis of information provision.

Abstract

This study examines how elderly patients and their companions participate in information provision during geriatric triadic medical consultations. It aims to explore whether patients maintain their priority in providing first-hand information in the presence of companions. Twelve triadic consultations in family medicine clinics were analyzed using Tsai's (2007) framework of information-providing cycles. The analysis focused on how information provision is distributed between patients and companions and how participation is organized in interactional sequences. The results showed that elderly patients remained the primary providers of information, accounting for 68.43% of information-providing cycles. Companions also participated in information-providing sequences through responding to physicians' questions, volunteering information, and jointly contributing with patients. Information exchange was predominantly physician-elicited, although both patients and companions also contributed spontaneously. These findings provide a baseline description of how information provision is organized in routine geriatric triadic consultations. Understanding how information is distributed between patients and companions may inform future research on communication in more complex geriatric consultations.