Health communication and adolescents: what do their emails tell us?
BACKGROUND
It is widely known that barriers exist in communication between adolescents and health professionals. However, little is known about the actual language used by young people articulating such difficulties and whether email might allow them to overcome these problems.


OBJECTIVE
The aims of this study were to investigate concerns and difficulties relating to communication among adolescents seeking online health advice.


METHODS
The study design was a corpus linguistic analysis of a million-word adolescent health email database based on 62 794 emails from young people requesting health advice from a prominent UK-hosted and doctor-led website.


RESULTS
Young people reported various concerns about their health. They described numerous difficulties in disclosing such concerns to other people, in particular to parents and doctors. However, they readily expressed their concerns by email, displaying elevated levels of directness, particularly in relation to potentially sensitive or embarrassing topics.


CONCLUSIONS
Email has the potential to facilitate and supplement face-to-face consultations with health professionals. Increased adoption of email by health providers may be an efficient means of engaging with a generation often reluctant to access more traditional health care services and thus encourage them to enter the primary care setting more readily.
School of English Studies, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG72RG, UK. kevin.harvey@nottingham.ac.uk
Kevin
K
Harvey
Dick
D
Churchill
Paul
P
Crawford
Brian
B
Brown
Louise
L
Mullany
Aidan
A
Macfarlane
Ann
A
McPherson
D000293:Adolescent; D054626:Consumer Health Information / Q000379:methods*; D034742:Electronic Mail; D006801:Humans; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D000297:Psychology, Adolescent; D012650:Self Disclosure; D006113:United Kingdom