RESEARCH THEMES

Our focus  

The focus of our study is on participation in decision-making among health care professionals and between professionals and patients. The main contexts are the adoption of current care guidelines within health care organizations, and making treatment decisions at neurology clinics. Particular attention is paid to the role that information literacy may have in the process of decision-making. We ask: 

What possibilities for participation in decision-making do different stakeholders have in these processes? 

How is the responsibility to participate and involve others in decision-making divided, and to whom is it allocated in the situations studied? 

What kinds of practices of involvement can be identified and what are their consequences for the ongoing interaction? 

What challenges and possibilities for service provision and use are generated by digitalized health care and the novel ways of producing and communicating information? 

What goals are formed in terms of participation within health care organizations, and what kinds of information literacy and procedures do the implementation of these goals demand from patients and health care professionals? 

What we do?  

1. We analyse the interactional processes of decision-making in meetings where Current Care Guidelines are drafted.

2. We conduct conceptual analyses of information literacy and examine its implementation in policy documents.

3. We analyse shared decision-making and information literacy practices in patient-professional encounters in epilepsy clinics. We study both face-to-face and technologically mediated interactions.

4. Based on findings from patient-professional interaction, we develop tools to support shared decision-making and integration of patients’ knowledge in medical practice.

5. We develop theories on decision-making in health care organizations and in professional-patient relationships in collaboration with health economists.