Health Communication Research Unit - Wits University

VISION

To improve care in health and community spaces through enhancing communication processes.

MISSION

To develop innovative ways of understanding and facilitating communication in care settings. To build research capacity and provide support to researchers and professionals.

APPROACH

We use collaborative, disease-specific, evidence-based applied research to address social, cultural, linguistic and ethical complexities of health, illness and disability.

CORE VALUES

Innovative and excellent research which facilitates:

Equitable and quality healthcare
Teamwork and collaboration
Relationship centred care
Global and local links
Postgraduate degrees
Research support and mentoring

GOALS

To promote equality and an understanding of diversity in health, social and community care through research
To create an interdisciplinary space for researchers from various disciplines across the university and beyond with a shared focus on diversity research in care
To apply methods from the social sciences to understand some of the challenges brought about by diversity in our context and examine how these impact on care
To influence theory, formulating recommendations for policy and practice
To develop and implement innovative site-specific and community-sensitive interventions to facilitate improved care in the context of diversity

Our methods are primarily qualitative, grounded in phenomenological and ethnographic frameworks. We use approaches such as participant observations, interviews, narratives, focus group discussions and recordings of health care interactions (analysed using interactional sociolinguistic approaches), amongst others.

We are interested in finding ways of doing research that are cost- and time-effective and flexible to the needs of the particular context and community of participants, as part of a move away from “purist”, conventional research traditions towards more pragmatic ways of applying qualitative approaches.

Our current projects focus on two major thematic areas:

Supporting communication skills in health care interactions [simulated, online, face to face]
Exploring experiences of care [care giving, care receiving, meaning of care]

Research Interests

Diversity and its impact on care
Interactions between healthcare workers and patients
Inter-professional team communication?
Communication skills training for healthcare teams
Communication skills training for student clinicians
Healthcare interpreting practices?
Ethical complexities in care
Adherence and medicine taking behaviours
Cultural beliefs and understanding of diseases?
Patient experiences of care
Arts and health collaborations
Illness narratives and narratives of lived experience

Recent Publications

Azevedo, F., Pavlovi?, T., Rego, G. … Watermeyer, J., et al. (2023). Social and moral psychology of COVID-19 across 69 countries. Scientific Data, 10, 272. [WoS]

de Lange, S., Muller, D., & Dafkin, C. (2023). The relationship between balance and urinary cortisol and neopterin in autistic children. Comprehensive Psychoneuroendocrinology, 16, 100216. [Scopus]

Gallant, A., Watermeyer, J., & Sawasawa, C. (2023). The teletherapy experiences of South African speech-language therapists during the COVID-19 pandemic: A qualitative survey. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 58(5), 1468-1480. [WoS]

Kanji, A., Watermeyer, J., Ismail, M. (2023). Audiology students’ practices and perspectives of their communication skills: The impact of a brief intervention. Speech, Language, and Hearing, 26, 31-39. [Scopus]

Madonsela, S., Ware, L., Scott, M., & Watermeyer, J. (2023) The development and use of adolescent mobile mental health (m-mhealth) interventions in Low-Middle-Income Countries: a scoping review. South African Journal of Psychology, 53(4), 471-483. [WoS]

Mills, L., & Watermeyer, J. (2023). A meta-ethnography on the experience and psychosocial implications of providing elective abortion care. Social Science and Medicine, 38, 115964. [WoS]

Scott, M., Watermeyer, J., & Wessels, T.M. (2023). A balancing act: Non-directive communication, risk perceptions, and meeting patient needs in genetic counseling: A South African case study. Journal of Genetic Counseling. [WoS]

Variava, T., & Watermeyer, J. (2023). A systematic review exploring the psychosocial factors affecting adolescent access to HIV treatment services. Adolescents, 3, 10-40. [DOAJ]

Van Bavel, J. J., Cichocka, A., Capraro, V., Sjåstad, H., Nezlek, J. B., Pavlovi?, T., …Watermeyer, J.,... & Jørgensen, F. J. (2022). National identity predicts public health support during a global pandemic. Nature Communications, 13(1), 517. [WoS]

Watermeyer, J., Etheredge, H., Fabian, J., & Tager, S. (2022). Emphasising Organisational Routine: A Qualitative Study of Patient and Health Professional Experiences of Inpatient Oncology Care. Healthcare, 10, 2145. [WoS]

Watermeyer, J., & Kanji, A. (2022). Students' reflections during training workshops on communication and information exchange in audiology consultations: an exploratory qualitative study. American Journal of Audiology, 31(3), 541-551. [WoS]

Watermeyer, J., & Neille, J. (2022). The application of qualitative approaches in a post-colonial context in speech-language pathology: A call for transformation. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 24, 494-503. [WoS]

Watermeyer, J., Scott, M., Kapueja, L., & Ware, L. (2022). To trust or not to trust: An exploratory qualitative study of young people’s perceptions of vaccines in Soweto, South Africa. Health Policy and Planning, 37, 1167-1176. [WoS]

Wieringa, T. H., Pinker, I. H., Jain, N., Goulding, R., van Klaveren, C. W., Lu, W., Lanzen, C… & Scott, M. (2022). Fragmented world, connected community: success factors of the first online EACH Summer School for early-career researchers. Patient Education and Counseling, 105, 257-259. [WoS]

Watermeyer, J., Kater, K. A., & Khumalo, G. (2022). Experiences of a pediatric speech-language teletherapy practical at a South African university training site during COVID-19: an exploratory qualitative study. The Clinical Supervisor, 41(2), 149-166. [Scopus]

Variava, T., & Watermeyer, J. (2022). A systematic review exploring the psychosocial factors affecting adolescent access to HIV treatment services. Adolescents, 3(1), 10-40. [DOAJ]

Pavlovi?, T., et al. (2022). Predicting attitudinal and behavioral responses to COVID-19 pandemic using machine learning. PNAS Nexus, 1(3), pgac093.

Van Bavel, J. J., Cichocka, A., Capraro, V., Sjåstad, H., Nezlek, J. B., Pavlovi?, T., …Watermeyer, J.,... & Jørgensen, F. J. (2022). National identity predicts public health support during a global pandemic. Nature communications, 13(1), 517.

Wieringa, T. H., Pinker, I. H., Jain, N., Goulding, R., van Klaveren, C. W., Lu, W., Lanzen, C… & Scott, M. (2022). Fragmented world, connected community: success factors of the first online EACH Summer School for early-career researchers. Patient Education and Counseling, 257-259.

Theme 1: Supporting Communication Skills in Health Care Interactions

Future-proofing the speech and hearing professions

This 3-year NRF-funded project uses a variety of methods to understand and support telepractice and simulated learning opportunities in Speech Pathology and Audiology.