Interaction Between Receptionists And Patients At The Reception Of Public Health Facilities And Private Hospitals In Kisumu County, Kenya.

Abstract

This is a study situated within the framework of discourse analysis that focuses on interaction between receptionists and patients at the reception of public health facilities and private hospitals in Kisumu County, Kenya. Hewitt (2006) posit that receptionist attend to patients exclusively through the spoken and written means. This is juxtaposed to doctors and nurses whose work to patients involves verbal, physical and technical examination. Using a tape recorder at one public health facility and one private health facility in Kisumu County, Kenya, the study comparatively explored the verbal structure of frontline interface between patients and receptionists, describing recurrent transactional and relational patterns and variations in their enactment in the two health facilities in Kenya. The study also examined roles and identities which are constructed by receptionists and patients as they pursue their discourse goals in the two hospitals. Lastly, this study sought to consider how knowledge on front line interface discourse patterns can be used in receptionists training.