The argumentative role of patient companions in (shared) decision-making.

Objective: This study aims to examine the type of involvement of patient companions in the argumentative exchanges in consultations and explore when their contributions should be taken into account in shared decision-making (SDM).

Methods: A qualitative analysis was carried out using transcribed medical consultations (N = 10) between health professionals (doctors at a regional Dutch hospital), adult patients and informal patient companions. Insights from argumentation theory were used to develop an inventory of twelve theoretically distinct discussion situations involving patient companions, distinguishing possible discussion roles, disagreement types and coalition formations.

Reliability in content analysis: The case of semantic feature norms classification.

Semantic feature norms (e.g., STIMULUS: car → RESPONSE: ) are commonly used in cognitive psychology to look into salient aspects of given concepts.