Practice of the Solution-Focused Approach in Outpatient Care for Adolescent Emotional Disorders: A Conversational Analysis Study in China

This article aims to study the process and characteristics of doctor-patient conversations in outpatient clinics for adolescent emotional disorder patients with the solution-focused approach (SFA). A qualitative study was carried out in an adolescent mood disorder clinic of a mental illness hospital. The recorded doctor-patient dialogue interview transcriptions were collected and analyzed using conversation analysis. The results show that SFA outpatient clinics and traditional psychiatric outpatient clinics differ in structure and language use. Structurally, there is an additional pre-assessment process. In language use, many SFA-specific questioning methods are used, and traditional symptom-based interviewing is no longer dominant, making it distinct from traditional general outpatient clinics that focus only on patient disease symptoms. Overall, the study highlights the effectiveness and value of SFA in outpatient settings, offering valuable insights to psychiatrists and benefiting adolescent patients through a more positive and strengths-based treatment approach.