title: Conversational strategies with parents of newly diagnosed leukaemic children: an analysis of 4880 conversational turns.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Communication with parents of children newly diagnosed with cancer poses a number of problems, mostly due to the psychological effects of parental trauma. This study was designed to answer the following questions: How can we sustain the flow of communication with parents of children newly diagnosed with leukaemia so that it may become easier and more effective? What should we say to gather more reliable information from parents? How can we help empower their coping strategies?
  
  
  METHODS
  We analysed 4880 conversational turns in individual conversations carried out between psychologists and 21 parents of children with leukaemia. The conversations were aimed at gathering information of the families' daily routines. Dialogues were audiotaped and fully transcribed. The type and frequency of speech acts present in each turn were coded along 18 categories by two independent judges (inter-rater agreement, Cohen Kappa =0.73).
  
  
  RESULTS
  The parental speech acts expressing emotion in various ways go up to 58% of the total number of their speech acts. The lag-sequential analysis showed that such expressions are not associated with any of the interviewer's speech act. The same analysis showed that, by contrast, the interviewer's style has an effect upon the cognitive aspects of parents' conversation. Support of hope favoured parental ability to identify their coping strategies. Explicit requests, confirmations such as "sure" and key words summarizing parents' viewpoints are followed by parental factual and objective narratives.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Based on these results, a few practical recommendations for health care professionals are given in order to better communicate with parents of children newly diagnosed with cancer.
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padua, via Venezia 8, 35131 Padova, Italy.
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Scrimin
authors.forename: Giovanna
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Axia
authors.forename: Marta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tremolada
authors.forename: Marta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pillon
authors.forename: Fabia
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Capello
authors.forename: Luigi
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zanesco
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003142:Communication; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D007558:Italy; D007938:Leukemia / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010372:Pediatrics; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations