The conversation strategies patients and clinicians use are important in determining patient satisfaction and adherence, and health outcomes following patient education-yet most studies are rife with surveys and interviews which often fail to account for real-time interaction. Conversation analysis (CA) is a powerful but underused sociological and linguistic technique aimed at understanding how interaction is accomplished in real-time. In the current manuscript, we provide a primer to CA in an effort to make the technique accessible to patient education researchers including; The history of CA, identifying and collecting data, transcription conventions, data analysis, and presenting the findings. Ultimately, this article provides an easily digestible demonstration of this analytic technique.
Keywords: Southeastern USA; communication; patient-centered care; qualitative methods.
© 2021 The Author(s).