Transitioning naturally into end-of-life talk in advance care planning consultations: a conversation-analytic study

• Main Author: Quek, Dorothy Shengrei
• Other Authors: Lim Ni Eng
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2023
• Subjects: Humanities::Linguistics::Discourse analysis
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/165270
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Advance Care Planning (ACP) is a discussion that is conducted between a trained facilitator, a patient, and their next-of-kin (NOK) on patient end-of-life (EOL) decisions and preferences. These discussions revolve around death and dying, and include conversations on invasive medical interventions that may be difficult or sensitive matters to these patients. As such, these topics are hard to broach and require delicate navigation especially on the end of facilitators to elicit patients’ thoughts and opinions without trespassing patients’ boundaries. In the data collected thus far, we observe instances where facilitators craft opportunities for patients to introduce EOL talk that allow for unmarked, natural transitions into these difficult topics. This study aims to examine such strategies that have been utilised and the ways in which they aid in the progressivity of EOL talk during ACP discussions.