Professional medical communication in war conditions: Gender aspect
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1
BOGOMOLETS NATIONAL MEDICAL UNIVERSITY, KYIV, UKRAINE
2
TERNOPIL VOLODYMYR HNATIUK NATIONAL PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY, TERNOPIL, UKRAINE
Publication date: 2025-07-25
Wiadomości Lekarskie 2025;(6):1091-1097
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
Aim: To investigate the features of professional medical communication in wartime through the prism of gender characteristics based on the analysis of
authentic dialogues from clinical conversations.
Materials and Methods: Bibliosemantic, content, psychosemantic, and comparative analysis; empirical methods: observing the living language of doctors
and patients, creating and typologising the collection of authentic doctor-patient dialogues. The authentic audio and video recordings of 232 doctor-patient
dialogues were collected. After conducting an initial typology of the dialogues, four samples were created: «male» and «female doctors», «male» and «female
patients». The dialogues were transcribed and subjected to content analysis using the «Textanz» software (v. 2.3).
Results: The psycholinguistic features of professional medical communication in each of the four studied samples were established. For example, male doctors
have higher speech activity within their professional role (181 words vs. 138 for female doctors). Their speech is characterised by a predominance of verbs
and rational structuring. In contrast, female doctors use nominative constructions with a predominance of nouns, pronouns, and adverbs more often, which
indicates the objectification of symptoms and an empathic orientation. Female patients show higher speech activity, ask questions more often, and use more
emotionally coloured vocabulary and modal words, which indicates increased anxiety.
Conclusions: The study confirms the presence of gender-based models of medical communication, which are exacerbated in wartime. The results of the study
can be used in training on the development of communication skills of medical workers, in writing clinical protocols, as well as in psychological support for
wounded and displaced persons.