“It’s nothing serious, take it easy”: Chinese doctors’ emotion-regulating discourses on the online medical consultation websites
Abstract
Prior studies have focused on the prevalence, causes and impacts of patients’ negative emotions during doctor-patient communication. However, to date, there is a paucity of research focusing on doctors’ emotion-regulating strategies and their effects on online medical consultation (OMC). In this connection, drawing on the concept of extrinsic emotion regulation, this paper analyzes empirically the doctors’ strategies in regulating patients’ emotions and examines the effects based on data from Dingxiang Yisheng, one of the largest online medical consultation platforms in China. It is found that doctors deploy extensive discourse of relational work and diagnosis to regulate patients’ negative emotions. Comments from patients not only reveal the effectiveness of doctors’ strategies in alleviating negative emotions but also showcase that patients attribute the relief of their emotions to doctors’ expertise, attitude, response speed, and communication skills. All these findings contribute to theoretical insights into emotion regulation and have practical implications for online doctor-patient communication.
Publication history
Table of contents
This study aims to explore the discursive strategies of emotion regulation by Chinese doctors on the ever-growing websites of online medical consultation (OMC), namely, a form of online medical consultation between a doctor and a patient in which medical services are provided (Lu et al. 2022). According to the 48th Statistical Report on China’s Internet Development from China Internet Network Information Center (2021), among the 1.011 billion Internet users in China (Luo et al. 2022), up to 23.7% of them turn to the Internet for medical purposes. This is particularly true when the cutting edges of online healthcare are highlighted (Gao and Lin 2022) by the anonymous accessibility to social support (Wang et al. 2019), less expense of time and money (Parikh et al. 2014) and the COVID-19 pandemic that locks down face-to-face healthcare (Zhang 2021a).
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