Satyanarayana Ratha

Communication and Behaviour Change: a Case Study of Leprosy Satyanarayana Ratha

Success of the treatment includes behavioural change among the patients, inevitably influenced by the process of communication in the clinic; systematic monitoring of which requires standardized methodologies for diagnosis, implementation and evaluation of communication process on regular basis, as in case of medical treatment. The main focus of this book, which is outcome of a Ph. D. thesis, is application of Anthropological techniques to document the process of communication through counselling along with leprosy treatment in a hospital situation. Highlights the action-research methodology adopted in the processes of diagnosing the communication needs along with medical diagnosis, implementation of need based communication through privacy based individual counselling sessions and quantitative evaluation of the impact of counselling in comparison with that of normal communication in leprosy clinic.