Approachability features and their application as a qualitative method of analysis for clinical healthcare interactions and ethnographic interviews

Background: Effective communication is crucial for positive health outcomes in clinical healthcare interactions. Patients value friendly, approachable, and informative clinicians who facilitate open communication and shared decision-making. Clinicians can use discourse features to influence how approachable patients and other clinicians believe them to be. Aims: To introduce and define the concept of approachability features as a qualitative analytical framework for investigating healthcare interactions and ethnographic interviews and to guide health communication researchers in their application. Methods: Drawing on existing literature on interpersonal pragmatics, rapport management, and healthcare communication to define and delineate the scope of approachability features, a step-by-step approach is provided for researchers to use and adapt the framework to suit diverse contextual and analytical needs. Two illustrative examples from existing studies are briefly described. Findings: The approachability features framework provides a versatile tool to gain insights into common discursive patterns used in healthcare interactions and to interpret their impact on the relationships between interlocutors. Researchers need to consider the importance of context as well as language and cultural adaptations. Conclusion: By introducing the approachability features framework, this paper contributes to the growing body of research on effective healthcare communication. It offers a structured, evidence-based analytical approach with applications across various health settings and topics.