A Linguistic Model of Communication Types in Palliative Medicine: Effects of Multidrug-Resistant Organisms Colonization or Infection and Isolation Measures in End of Life on Family Caregivers' Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices

Background: This study examines communication profiles and associated attitudes toward health care professionals in interviews with family caregivers of hospitalized patients with confirmed multidrug-resistant organisms (e.g., methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or multiresistant gram-negative bacteria) diagnosis at the end of life. Objectives: This study aims to replicate and complement findings from a previous investigation using a different methodological framework. The benefits of linguistic research in medical contexts are highlighted. Design: Fifty interviews with family caregivers were analyzed linguistically. The considered parameters include lexical choices such as evaluative wording, metaphors, and specialized terminology, as well as higher level categories—turn-taking, sentence-length, and personal deixis. These characteristics serve to assess attitudes toward medical staff, hygiene measures, knowledge, and its transfer and general emotional states. Conclusions: Linguistic expertise adds benefits to the classical analysis of language data as used in social sciences. Family caregivers' linguistic and attitudinal profiles vary depending on whether their involvement in the overall situation is active or passive, and whether their relationship toward staff and hospital is cooperative or confrontative. Depending on the four possible combinations of those characteristics, different recommendations for communication strategies on the staff's side can be given. In all cases, clear and patient/family centeredness are considered beneficial.