Conceptualization and operationalization: utility of communication privacy management theory.

Communication Privacy Management (CPM) theory explains one of the most important, yet challenging social processes in everyday life, that is, managing disclosing and protecting private information. The CPM privacy management system offers researchers, students, and the public a comprehensive approach to the complex and fluid character of privacy management in action. Following an overview of Communication Privacy Management framework, this review focuses on recent research utilizing CPM concepts that cross a growing number of contexts and illustrates the way people navigate privacy in action. Researchers operationalize the use of privacy rules and other core concepts that help describe and explain the ups and downs of privacy management people encounter.

How Older Adults and Their Families Perceive Family Talk about Aging-Related EOL Issues: A Dialectical Analysis.

For older adults, approaching end-of-life (EOL) brings unique transitions related to family relationships. Unfortunately, most families greatly underestimate the need to discuss these difficult issues. For example, parents approaching EOL issues often struggle with receiving assistance from others, avoiding family conflict, and maintaining their sense of personhood. In addition, discussions of EOL issues force family members to face their parents' mortality, which can be particularly difficult for adult children to process emotionally. This study explored aging issues identified by aging parents and their families as they traverse these impending EOL changes. Ten focus groups of seniors (n = 65) were conducted. Focus groups were organized according to race (African-American/European-American), gender, and whether the older adult was living independently or in an assisted care facility. When asked open-ended questions about discussing aging and EOL issues with family members, participants revealed tensions that led us to consider Relational Dialectics Theory as a framework for analysis. The predominant tension highlighted in this report was certainty versus uncertainty, with the two sub-themes of sustained life versus sustained personhood and confronting versus avoiding EOL issues. For these data, there were more similarities than differences as a result of gender, race, or living situation than one might expect, although culture and financial status were found to be influential in the avoidance of EOL discussions. The results of this study help to provide additional insight into relational dialectics related to aging, EOL, and the importance of communication in facilitating family coping.

Social Support Functions During a Slowly-Evolving Environmental Disaster: The Case of Amphibole Asbestos Exposure in Libby, Montana.

Previous research concluded that victims of rapid-onset natural disasters (e.g., hurricanes) receive and provide high levels of instrumental support. However, different kinds of disasters (natural or human caused [technological, environmental, intentional/terrorism], rapid or slow onset, short or long duration) may create different stressors and thus influence the types of social support most needed and provided. We explored social support functions during an ongoing "slowly-evolving environmental disaster" in Libby, Montana due to widespread exposure to amphibole asbestos. Analyses of focus groups and in-depth interviews focused on the relative salience of support functions (emotional, informational, instrumental, and spiritual) identified as needed or provided. Dominant themes emerged around each function. Results indicated that informational support is particularly salient in this type of disaster. Although not all community members had experienced the disaster's health consequences (asbestos-related disease [ARD]), all had been affected by the disaster and had informational needs. The nature of those informational needs (e.g., medical vs. financial) varied based on experience with ARD. Experience with ARD was associated with awareness of disaster-related emotional and instrumental support needed or provided. Results have implications for future research on slowly-evolving environmental disasters and institutional and community responses to them.

A case of error disclosure: a communication privacy management analysis.

To better understand the process of disclosing medical errors to patients, this research offers a case analysis using Petronios's theoretical frame of Communication Privacy Management (CPM). Given the resistance clinicians often feel about error disclosure, insights into the way choices are made by the clinicians in telling patients about the mistake has the potential to address reasons for resistance. Applying the evidenced-based CPM theory, developed over the last 35 years and dedicated to studying disclosure phenomenon, to disclosing medical mistakes potentially has the ability to reshape thinking about the error disclosure process. Using a composite case representing a surgical mistake, analysis based on CPM theory is offered to gain insights into conversational routines and disclosure management choices of revealing a medical error. The results of this analysis show that an underlying assumption of health information ownership by the patient and family can be at odds with the way the clinician tends to control disclosure about the error. In addition, the case analysis illustrates that there are embedded patterns of disclosure that emerge out of conversations the clinician has with the patient and the patient's family members. These patterns unfold privacy management decisions on the part of the clinician that impact how the patient is told about the error and the way that patients interpret the meaning of the disclosure. These findings suggest the need for a better understanding of how patients manage their private health information in relationship to their expectations for the way they see the clinician caring for or controlling their health information about errors. Significance for public healthMuch of the mission central to public health sits squarely on the ability to communicate effectively. This case analysis offers an in-depth assessment of how error disclosure is complicated by misunderstandings, assuming ownership and control over information, unwittingly following conversational scripts that convey misleading messages, and the difficulty in regulating privacy boundaries in the stressful circumstances that occur with error disclosures. As a consequence, the potential contribution to public health is the ability to more clearly see the significance of the disclosure process that has implications for many public health issues.

Healthy research perspectives: incorporating college student experiences with alcohol.

College student alcohol consumption is pervasive and problematic at most U.S. college and university campuses. This study focuses on understanding college students who consume high levels of alcohol, providing healthy insight into what have been perceived by researchers as unhealthy behaviors. Researchers conducted 6 mediated focus group discussions. Five strategies are warranted: normalize alcohol consumption, consider alcohol socialization practices used in other cultures, educate parents about the importance of their role, modify current high school alcohol education strategies, and provide student responsibility through peer interaction.