Sundhedskommunikation i psykologisk og filosofisk belysning: Hvem, hvorfor og hvordan?

In “Health Communication in a Psychological and Philosophical Light – Who, Why, and How?” Mariann B. Sørensen examines communication in different contexts in the health sector. The primary concern is the difficulties of communication in connection with serious illness and imminent death.
There are two focal points of special interest. One is the role of communication in relation to bridging the gap between the humanities and medicine. The other focal point is the role of psychology in the models of understanding prevalence within the discourse of health care. This part of the thesis examines the National Health Board’s extension of the biological – psychological – social model with an existential/spiritual perspective in relation to the cancer treatment program (The National Health Board, 2012).
Through different methodological approaches: analysis of documents, of autobiographies, of focus groups, and of videotaped sequences, the thesis examines what patients, relatives and health care professionals find important in regards to experiencing the progression of a life-threatening disease like cancer. The framework of the thesis is a phenomenological approach, which is examined within the fields of health care research, psychology, and philosophy.
The thesis, which consists of two articles, four chapters and a theoretical framework, offers a perspective on why and how communication in health care causes difficulties, and how these difficulties can be handled in the health care system of the future.