Engaging parents through gaze: Speaker selection in three-party interactions in maternity clinics

Objective

Describing and analyzing speaker selection in conversations between the health nurse and parents in maternity clinics.

Methods

The data consisted of ten video-recorded encounters in maternity clinics. Using conversation analysis, we investigated 89 sequences of interaction in which the health nurse asks a question that is verbally addressed to both parents.

Results

There was an observable pattern of selecting mothers as principal respondents by all participants of the encounters in maternity clinics. In a few deviant cases, fathers were selected as principal respondents. A typical practice of speaker selection was the gaze direction of the health nurse towards the recipient (usually the mother) at the closure of her question. Various situational elements also influenced which one of the parents answered the question. The deviant cases in which fathers were selected as principal respondents were mainly explainable by the use of the questionnaire designed to facilitate talking about psycho-social issues connected with the transition to parenthood.

Conclusion

Particular interactional circumstances and practices can break the pattern of selecting mothers as respondents to questions addressed to both parents.

Practice implications

Fathers could easily be engaged in conversations through gaze. Also the questionnaire seems promising in engaging fathers in conversations in clinics.