Constructing elderly patients’ agency through conversational storytelling

Abstract Conversational storytelling in doctor–patient interactions has become an important channel for doctors to understand patients’ experiences of health and illness. This study explores how storytelling is used as a resource to influence patient’s agency in history-taking, especially in the sequential development of elderly Chinese patients’ storytelling. The study draws on 39 conversations with four doctors and twelve elderly patients. Examples are selected from five contrasting extracts to see how elderly Chinese patients employ storytelling to reveal agency accomplished in doctor–patient interaction, especially among the patients’ orienting to the “sick role”. By specifying the agency engagement, this study also helps us appreciate that doctors should be encouraged to attend to patients’ storytelling and assert patients’ agency as ways to attend to their concerns and come to a deeper understanding of their conditions, to facilitate holistic medical encounters.