The emergent medicalised heart of the health care professional

Abstract

This study explores emotional quality displayed by health care professionals (HCPs) and the factors that underpin this quality during clinical encounters in primary health care in Malta. Healthcare has been dominated by the medical model; however, with quality of care becoming upfront on people’s agenda, two issues are under the microscope. The first is concerned with the contribution of the medical model and the second with the relationship between the service user (SU) and the HCP. This means that HCPs are expected to follow a hypothetical-deductive approach based on their technical knowledge whilst simultaneously including a line of enquiry that optimizes the quality of emotional display to frame their intervention. This study was conducted using the tenets of grounded theory to generate substantive theory that explains how emotional display by HCPs affects their practice. The data were derived by means of in-depth semi-structured interviews held with 20 HCPs and 7 SUs. To achieve triangulation 5 field observations together with investigation of the customer complaint data were also undertaken. The data collected were transcribed and analyzed using the procedure outlined in Strauss and Corbin (1998) and the emergent medicalised heart surfaced as the substantive theory. This theory conceptualizes the process of the quality of emotional display by HCPs as a series of purposeful actions that lead them to articulate their emotions through their professional practice. Each experience can either lead to a liberalized or an inhibited way of emotional display. Despite the limitations of the study, the general findings support the substantive theory that a relationship exists between emotional display and the seven prime categories that emerged from the data. Research clarifying the intervention of the association of the quality of emotional display in healthcare could have vast implications for inter-group relations, SU and HCP well-being and organizational branding.