Investigating Doctors-Patients Interaction from a Sociolinguistic Perspective: The Case of Ahmed Medeghri Public Hospital of Ain Témouchent

Abstract

In health sector, a good medical care depends primary on health providers who are concerned with making the most efficient health treatment for their patients. Yet, it depends on the effectiveness of communication. It is the prominent criterion for achieving a successful medication, maintaining and improving their health as well as reaching a high satisfaction for both the therapists and the patients. Indeed, Doctor- Patient communication is, essentially, an important issue that should be valued and given much more importance and interest so that doctors can establish a good relationship with their patients and avoid any type of confusion, misconception, misleading, or misunderstanding. However, a poor D-P communication can have serious consequences upon the health outcomes, especially to the laymen who experience a big misunderstanding due to their doctors’ use of medical jargon. The present research focuses principally on D-P communication at Ahmed Medeghri Public Hospital of Ain Témouchent. It examines language use in the Algerian healthcare settings. It also sheds light on the behaviour of doctors who tend to use French language in everyday medical encounters. In addition, it seeks to observe the linguistic profile of the patients including their level of proficiency towards French language as well as their level of health literacy in order to check their ability of understanding the medical jargon. Hence, this research work also aims at discovering the communication barriers that may lead to poor communication. Thus, this research inquiry makes its investigation based on two research instruments of data collection namely the questionnaire and the interview. After collecting and analysing the needed data and testing the hypotheses; the study finds out that the patients’ lack of health literacy, the use of French language and mostly, the medical jargon constitutes a barrier to effective communication in the Algerian healthcare settings which accordingly affects D-P relationships.