Samarbete genom samtal : En samtalsanalytisk studie av multiprofessionella teamkonferenser inom smärtrehabilitering

Sammanfattning: The thesis investigates team talk and team collaboration from a dialogical perspec­tive, and is based on video recordings of 15 multi­professional team conferences involving a pain rehabilitation team. The analyses also draw upon a vast material of interviews, field notes and documents collected during almost a year of fieldwork at the clinic. The main purpose of the thesis is to shed light on some of the distinguish­ing linguistic features of such team confe­ren­ces and on the pragmatic strategies deployed by the team members in order to bring into play the variety of professional perspectives represented in the team. Ana­lyses of their lexical choices and interaction show three areas of responsibility: professional, overlapping and shared. Analyses of phases, activities and participant structures show how the team conferences can be understood as a specific type of institutional interaction, a communicative activity type that makes it possible both to share information and to reach a shared understanding of the patients’ problems. A deeper interactional analysis reveals pragmatic strategies enhancing the team’s multiprofessional com­munication: the identification and sorting of information, in-depth discussions of specific problems and decision-making procedures. The results illustrate central aspects of what is often called interprofessional competence within the field of health care, i.e. the ability to make the most of multiprofessional collabo­ration. The thesis adds to our understanding of team conferences as a communi­ca­tive activity type and increases our understanding of how participants can offer their perspec­tive through conversation, thereby making it possible for the others to adopt this perspective – in short, to achieve what is often referred to as a democratic dialogue.