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- Title
'You've got to take them seriously': meeting information needs in mental healthcare.
- Authors
Clarke, Karen; Rooksby, John; Rouncefield, Mark
- Abstract
In this article we explore the practical aspects of providing mental health information over the telephone, and discuss how this may be used to inform the creation of a website. We draw from an ethnographic study of an 'information and listening helpline'. By paying close attention to how the helpline operators 'take seriously' their callers' problems and requests -- indeed, by taking the work of the phone operators seriously -- we show that the operators artfully talk, categorize and translate to help the individual caller and to satisfy organizational demands. A website is seen by the helpline in question as a logical move to providing accessible information to a wider audience. Whilst web-based and phone-based services might both appear to function along similar lines for providing information, we question how a web-based system might afford or complement the kinds of services that can be done over the telephone.
- Subjects
MENTAL health services; MEDICAL informatics; HELPLINES; CALL centers; TELEPHONE operators; TELEPHONES
- Publication
Health Informatics Journal, 2007, Vol 13, Issue 1, p37
- ISSN
1460-4582
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1177/1460458207073644