Cover not available
Article published In:
Narratives as Social Practice in Organisational Contexts
Edited by Dorien Van De Mieroop, Jonathan Clifton and Stephanie Schnurr
[Narrative Inquiry 32:1] 2022
► pp. 9–35

Narrative evaluation in patient feedback

A study of online comments about UK healthcare services

ORCID logo | Lancaster University
ORCID logo | Lancaster University | Xi’an Jiaotong University
ORCID logo | Birmingham City University
| Lancaster University
| Lancaster University

This study examines how patients use narratives to evaluate their experiences of healthcare services online. The analysis draws on corpus linguistic techniques, specifically annotation, applying Labov and Waletzky’s (1967) framework to a sample of online comments about the NHS in England. Narratives are pervasive in this context, being present more than absent in the patients’ comments, but are particularly prominent in comments which evaluate care negatively. Evaluations can be accomplished through all the structural elements of the narrative, including in combination with one another. However, the presence and ordering of these elements does not seem to be influenced by the type of evaluation given (i.e. positive, negative or more neutral). As mediated social practice, the narratives are shaped by the technological affordances and social dynamics of this context, for instance in the placement of particular structural elements and the design of narratives for particular “imagined” audiences.

Keywords: patient feedback, Health Communication, NHS, narrative, annotation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
  • 3.Data and analytical approach
    • 3.1Data
    • 3.2Analytical approach
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Abstract
    • 4.2Orientation
    • 4.3Complication
    • 4.4Evaluation
    • 4.5Resolution
    • 4.6Coda
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 23 August 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.20098.bro
References
Anthony, L.
(2020) AntConc (Version 3.5.9) [Computer Software]. Tokyo, Japan: Waseda University. Available from [URL]
Arribas-Ayllon, M.
(2021) Narrative Analysis: DNA testing and collaborative knowledge-building in a CFS/ME forum. In G. Brookes & D. Hunt (Eds.), Analysing Health Communication: Discourse Approaches. Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Atkinson, P., & Delamont, S.
(2006) In the Roiling Smoke: Qualitative Inquiry and Contested Fields. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 19(6), 747–755. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Austin, J.
(1962) How to do things with words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bell, A.
(1984) Language Style as Audience Design. In N. Coupland and A. Jaworski (Eds.), Sociolinguistics: A Reader and Coursebook (pp. 240–250). Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Baker, P., Brookes, G., & Evans, C.
(2019) The Language of Patient Feedback: A Corpus Linguistic Study of Online Health Communication. Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brookes, G., & Baker, P.
(2017) What does patient feedback reveal about the NHS? A mixed methods study of comments posted to the NHS Choices online service. BMJ Open, 71: e013821. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2016b) Examining the discourse of mental illness in a corpus of online advice-seeking messages. In L. Pickering, E. Friginal and S. Staples (Eds.), Talking at Work: Corpus-based Explorations of Workplace Discourse (pp. 209–234). Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brookes, G., & McEnery, T.
(2020) Corpus Linguistics. In S. Adolphs and D. Knight (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of English Language and Digital Humanities (pp. 378–404). Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bruner, J.
(1991) The narrative construction of reality. Critical Inquiry, 181, 1–21. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Charon, R.
(2006) The self-telling body. Narrative Inquiry, 161, 191–200. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clark, J., & Mishler, E.
(1992) Attending to patients’ stories: Reframing the clinical task. Sociology of Health and Illness, 141, 344–370. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cortazzi, M., & Jin, L.
(2000) Evaluating Evaluation in Narrative. In S. Hunston and G. Thompson (Eds.), Evaluation in Text: Authorial stance and the construction of discourse (pp.102–120). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Davis, J., Lister, J., & Wringley, D.
(2015) NHS for Sale. Merlin Press.Google Scholar
Frank, A.
(1995) The Wounded Storyteller. University of Chicago Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Georgakopoulou, A.
(2007) Small Stories, Interaction and Identities. John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goffman, E.
(1955) On Face-Work: An Analysis of Ritual Elements in Social Interaction. Psychiatry: Interpersonal and Biological Processes, 18(3), 213–231. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Greenhalgh, T.
(1999) Narrative based medicine in an evidence based world. British Medical Journal, 3181, 232. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Greenhalgh, T., & Hurwitz, B.
(1999) Why study narrative? British Medical Journal, 318(7175), 48–50. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Harvey, K., & Koteyko, N.
(2012) Exploring Health Communication: Language in Action. Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Holmes, J., & Marra, M.
(2005) Narrative and the construction of professional identity in the workplace. In J. Thornborrow and J. Coates (Eds.), The Sociolinguistics of Narrative (pp. 913–213). John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jones, R.
(2013) Health and Risk Communication: An Applied Linguistic Perspective. Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kleinman, A.
(1988) The illness narratives: Suffering, healing, and the human condition. Basic Books.Google Scholar
Labov, W., & Waletzky, J.
(1967) Narrative analysis. In J. Helm (Ed.) Essays on the Verbal and Visual Arts (pp. 12–44). University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Lamerichs, J., & Te Molder, H.
(2003) Computer-mediated communication: from cognitive to a discursive model. New Media & Society, 5(4), 451–473. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Linde, C.
(1997) Evaluation as a linguistic structure and social practice. In B. L. Gunnarsson, P. Linell & B. Nordberg (Eds.), The Construction of Professional Discourse (pp. 151–172). Routledge.Google Scholar
Polanyi, L.
(1979) So what’s the point? Semiotica, 251, 207–241. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Polkinghorne, D.
(1988) Narrative knowing and the human sciences. New York Press.Google Scholar
Riessman, C.
(1990) Strategic Uses of Narrative in the Presentation of Self and Illness. Social Science and Medicine, 301, 1195–1200. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sarangi, S., & Clarke, A.
(2002) Constructing an account by contrast in counselling for childhood genetic testing. Social Science & Medicine, 541, 295–308. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ziebland, S.
(2013) Narrative interviewing. In S. Ziebland, A. Coulter, J. D. Calabrese & L. Locock (Eds.), Understanding and Using Health Experiences: Improving patient care (pp. 38–47). Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar