Announcers and confessors: How people self-disclose depression in health panels

Abstract

Focus groups can be used to explore sensitive topics and have been found to increase the likelihood and depth of disclosure of personal and sensitive information in comparison to individual interviews. This article focuses on how people make self-disclosures in group research settings, specifically self-disclosure of depression. Data was collected from twelve health panel groups, held in Somerset, England. Health panels are a focus group-based method where members of the public are brought together to discuss a variety of topics including sensitive ones. The topic discussed by the health panel was attitudes to help-seeking for stress and depression. In this paper I conceptualize two new types of discloser-which I term "announcers" and "confessors" and illustrate how normalizing language can facilitate disclosures. This study has important implications for focus groupbased research and for health professionals who deal with stigmatized conditions such as depression.

Validating “announcer” and “confessor” styles of mental health self-disclosure through use of archived qualitative data

“…The concept of two styles of self-disclosure, announcers and confessors and their relative characteristics are clearly evident in both the Somerset Health Panels [3] and Youth Suicide data. In both datasets announcers selfdisclosed with minimal prompting or inhibition and once disclosed, contributed confidently about their experiences during the subsequent discussion.…”

“…establishing common ground, breaking the ice, humour and setting the tone [4][5][6][7][8]. However, it was identified in the previous study [3] that there were differences between "announcers" and "confessors" responses to these factors, with confessors more likely to be influenced by them than announcers.…”

“…Selfdisclosures in this context can be defined as "personal revelations of thoughts or actions that were often painful to the speaker and that risked censure because they were contrary either to family or social mores or to their role expectations" [2]. Two new conceptual styles of self-disclosure were identified in a previous study-"announcers" and "confessors" [3]. The characteristics of each, as summarised in the previous article, are shown in Figure 1.…”