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    Communication strategies for healthcare providers to enhance vaccine discussions with vaccine-hesitant patients
    (Interdisciplinary Journal of Sociality Studies, 2024-04-27) Adedokun, Theophilus; Idowu-Collins, Patricia
    This study examines vaccine hesitancy as an emerging public health concern that undermines the efficacy of vaccination initiatives. Healthcare providers play a crucial role in addressing vaccine hesitancy; however, many lack effective communication strategies. This study developed evidence-based communication guidelines to assist healthcare providers in discussing vaccines with hesitant patients. Drawing on Bourdieu's theoretical framework, semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten vaccine-hesitant parents and ten paediatricians in Nigeria. Through reflexive thematic analysis of the interview transcripts, this study uncovers power dynamics, legitimacy struggles, and cultural capital's significance in vaccine conversations. The findings reveal that hesitant parents question the legitimacy of vaccine recommendations, feeling marginalised yet constrained by societal norms of responsible parenthood. Similarly, healthcare providers' reliance on biomedical expertise often proves insufficient without rapport building, cultural competency, and addressing patients' unique knowledge assets. The findings of this study contribute to communication theory, medical education, and clinical practice by advocating for power-conscious, dialogue-based strategies to promote vaccination amidst uncertainty and scepticism.
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    Use of language and communication among the Pentecostal Evangelical Charismatic Churches in Durban, South Africa
    (Scholarlink Research Institute Journals, 2018) Adebayo, Rufus Olufemi; Zulu, Sylvia Phiwani
    The significance of language and communication is more relevant in multifarious cultural settings similar to South Africa. Churches are at the vanguard of using religious languages to communicate and express ideas, emotions, and convictions to diverse congregants. We contextualize a linguistic element that the emergence of new Pentecostal and evangelical charismatic churches has not only raised a complexity of language and communication but has also become ambivalent and paradoxical in nature. As a result, we highlight the relationship between language and religion and how language could be a medium for the transmission of religious communication and debates in a multi-cultural setting. Using qualitative methodology, data was gathered among 20churches in the Durban area of South Africa, to understand the flow of linguistic characteristics set up to serve spiritual interests. The results show that the problem associated with religious language has been an age long and in recent times, attention has also shifted to an absurd linguistic problem. This study has, to an extent, found that religious language differs from everyday communication, and there is no common ground between these miotic and pragmatic use of language and the contending power of spirit-filled languages. We found that as modern Christian churches emerge, a series of issues have resurfaced, including the denotation and connotation of language, communication of religion and pragmatic motivations in behaviour; the struggle between interfaith and the channel of communication remains at the edge of church denominations. To ensure effective use of language and communication, it is highlighted that if language should be used for religious communication and debates, it needs to be used in a systematic, spiritual and theological forms. Pentecostal churches should identify and establish a common ground between semiotic and pragmatic use of language and the contending power of spirit-filled languages. The paper is important as preachers, communicators and the world of scholarship may benefit from the study in understanding the spiritual implication of language and communication when passing across messages to their various congregations and audiences.
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    An evaluation of the suitability of the course Communication Skills 1, for engineering students at technikons in Natal
    (1997) Narsee, Sheila Devkaran; Dobie, B. A.
    The title of this research dissertation includes the appellation 'Natal'. Since the work began in 1989, the name of that province has officially become 'KwaZulu-Natal'. However, the previous designation has largely been used interchangeably with the present one, mainly because the course evaluated was and has been identified with Natal. This research was inspired by the assumption that the Communication Skills I course presently being offered to engineering students at technikons in South Africa did not appear to satisfy the workplace needs (in terms of content and time) of the engineering industry. This assumption arose out of a pilot study undertaken by the writer in 1989. In this pilot study, engineering companies were visited, and interviews were held with managers/directors/training managers, to ascertain the communication skills requirements of engineering technicians in the workplace. Many criticisms were made regarding the communication competency of engineering technicians in the workplace. According to the findings of the pilot study, engineering practitioners hold the view that the literacy skill demands of jobs are increasing while the basic skills of the available workforce, eg. reading, writing and speaking are decreasing. Employers expressed concern with the large numbers of workers who lack such skills in listening, speaking, reading, writing and thinking, and believe that this limits their chances of upward mobility in the workplace as well as their ability to adapt to workplace changes. All these factors, according to employers, have a negative impact on productivity levels. It was, as a result of the pilot study, suggested that engineering curricula, specifically the Communication Skills I course, should be fully evaluated to see to what extent they meet the workplace requirements of industry. What seems important is that the engineering technician should practise what has been learned and for the lecturer/instructor to bring practitioners and the workplace experiences into the classroom.