Actions speak louder than words: the embodiment of trust by healthcare professionals in gynae‐oncology

Abstract

Trust is vital for quality healthcare outcomes, yet existing research neglects the 'embodiedness' of the interactions on which trust is based. This article draws on qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with cervical cancer patients. The significance of body work in winning or, on occasions, undermining trust emerged as a key theme within the responses. Interpretations of professionals' verbal and non-verbal presentations-of-self were often mutually reinforcing and intrinsically linked -forming a more general locus of meaning from which assumptions of competence and care were drawn. Yet it also became apparent that, whilst verbal communication was useful in establishing the agenda of the professional in relation to that of the patient, it was body work which was crucial in corroborating and validating beliefs pertaining to the ability and willingness of the professional to deliver this agenda in the future. The multi-temporal nature of trust makes apparent how certain seemingly distinct forms of body work -as presentation-of-self versus more hands-on modes -are inherently intertwined. Trust, and the affective relationship in which it is rooted, bridges the present with the future and thus makes apparent how seemingly 'detached' forms of body work are connected to the emotion-work of the caring role and the craftwork of body work as touch.

The inherent tensions and ambiguities of hope: Towards a post-formal analysis of experiences of advanced-cancer patients

“…We might therefore typify the risk management approach as characterised by a particular form of rationality, through which 'explicit knowledge' (Lam, 2000) is applied in an aggregated and calculative manner (Zinn, 2008). In contrast, trust can be described as invoking a more embodied and tacit manner of working with uncertainty when vulnerable (Barbalet, 2009;Brown et al, 2011). Unlike risk and trust, hope is (shaped amidst but) not dependent upon knowledge from the past, hence Zinn's (2008) 'non-rational' label.…”

Patients’ Experiences of Trust in the Patient-Nurse Relationship—A Systematic Review of Qualitative Studies

“…In the context of gynae-oncology, one study claimed that trust is likely to vary across different clinical settings as they relate trust to "a particular physiological, emotional, clinical, cultural and gendered context of body work" (p. 292) and reported that gender may influence the embodied phenomenon of trust in patients with cervical cancer [42]. For those with schizophrenia, the act of bringing service to the patient in a caring manner may result in fostering trust.…”

Corporal diagnostic work and diagnostic spaces: clinicians’ use of space and bodies during diagnosis

“…Heath (1986), for example, has explored the ways in which both clinicians and patients use their gaze and body language to indicate recipiency and to prompt the other to talk. Brown and colleagues (2011) have explored how clinicians use their bodies to convey information to patients, usually as a complement to verbal language, within the context of gynae‐oncology. For many of the patients included in the study, whether or not they trusted a clinician depended a great deal on the clinician's bodily actions and gestures.…”