title: The interactional consequences of 'empowering discourse' in intercultural patient education.
abstract: Patient education is an important part of nurses' roles; however the inconsistent quality of communication skills, including those of registered nurses (RNs) from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds, risk patient safety. Empowerment in patient education has been found to influence patients' self-efficacy and participation in decision-making. Discourse analysis of a whole interaction is used in this paper to trace the consequences of patient education where empowering discourse is displayed by an RN from a CALD background.
  
  
  
  Ethnographic techniques of participant observation and audio recordings of naturally occurring interactions between nurses from CALD backgrounds and their patients were conducted and analysed using interactional sociolinguistic (IS) and theme oriented discourse analytic approaches.
  
  
  
  The interactional consequences of the nurse's empowering approach are readily observable in the data. The RN addresses the patient's education needs through a respectful encounter that illustrates the patient's active involvement.
  
  
  
  Examining the interactional consequences of empowering discourse demonstrates its effectiveness, and illustrates how empowering behaviour can be integrated into patient education, thus offering an alternative to traditional approaches.
  
  
  
  Greater awareness of how to use empowering discourse will offer an alternative and consistent approach that enables nurses to facilitate patient-centred education.
authors.affiliation: Linguistics Department, Macquarie University, Balaclava Road, North Ryde, Lecturer, University of Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia. Electronic address: tonia.crawford@students.mq.edu.au.
authors.forename: Tonia
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Crawford
authors.affiliation: Linguistics Department, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Electronic address: peter.roger@mq.edu.au.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Roger
authors.affiliation: Linguistics Department, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Electronic address: sallycandlin@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Sally
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Candlin
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003142:Communication; D054521:Cultural Competency; D018864:Cultural Diversity; D006801:Humans; D024802:Nurse's Role / Q000523:psychology; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D010353:Patient Education as Topic / Q000379:methods*; D010358:Patient Participation; D011209:Power, Psychological
keywords: Discourse analysis; Empowerment; Intercultural communication; Patient education