Abstract

Patients that suffer from invisible chronic illness (ICI) such as autoimmune conditions, neurological conditions, and gastrointestinal problems often struggle to obtain a proper medical diagnosis due to a lack of objective indicators to help health-care providers diagnose patients with ICIs. Thus, researchers conducted interviews with 21 participants with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) to determine what messages they received from health-care providers as they pursued a diagnosis, how they interpreted those messages, and what role mHealth technology may play in improving patient/provider communication and effective diagnosis/treatment of ICIs. Several themes regarding potential instructional communication intervention content emerged from the interview data, including physician communication to patients, patient interpretation of physician communication, and information-seeking via mHealth technology. Directions for future research and implications for patient and provider instruction and training, including utilizing the IDEA model, are discussed.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2021

Notes/Citation Information

Published in Journal of Communication Pedagogy, v. 4.

© The Author(s) 2021

All articles in Journal of Communication Pedagogy are open access and are governed by the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.31446/JCP.2021.1.02

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