Tensions in compliance for renal patients – how renal discussion groups conceive knowledge and safe care

摘要: Much of the medical literature on patient compliance explores why patients fail to follow practitioners' instructions. This paper perspectives 'compliance' expressed in online discussion groups for kidney patients. Discourse analysis was used investigate how contributors conceptualise knowledge and role renal patient. In groups, were sometimes seen have better understanding details their illness than some practitioners, a focus born inhabiting situation therefore having more at stake. Some set themselves task supervising own care, double checking work practitioners. did not threaten biomedical knowledge, but these counter-discourses challenge professional boundaries by making it prerogative obtain knowledge. I explore issues surveillance frustration, potential usefulness patients' overseeing safety, while flagging plight less 'empowered' or motivated