patient reported health history, how to cite in APA?

[pippylockstocking]

I have a paper for a Case Management assignment. The first 3-5 pages of my paper are 99% patient report (health history, family history, social history, etc.).

Do I need to use citations? And if so, what is the proper way to do that in this situation. It's not like the info came from a medical chart, or a doctor.

fyi: the patient is my mother. we were allowed to choose a friend or family member if we wanted to.

[kgh31386, BSN, MSN, RN]

(APA) How do I cite an e-mail, interview, or survey I conducted? - NoodleTools Support Center

Most say you don't include the interview or personal communication within the reference list. Because it really isn't something a teacher can look up or reference.

[puravidaLV]

all you have to say is :

Name (date in YYYY, Month spelled out day). Method of interview "interviewed in person"

[pippylockstocking]

(APA) How do I cite an e-mail, interview, or survey I conducted? - NoodleTools Support Center

Most say you don't include the interview or personal communication within the reference list. Because it really isn't something a teacher can look up or reference.

I have a feeling you are correct. Since it's a personal medical history, and taking confidentiality into account, it's not something that can be referenced.

I do know about the APA citations for a "interview", but I think that's a different situation. Thank you.

[Future RN- June '11]

When citing communication you had with your patient in APA 6, you use in-text citations only, like this: (personal communication, 2010). following the pharagraph with the information from your patient in it. You do not need to cite the personal communication in the reference list.

[shaas, ASN, RN]

APA, MLA, Chicago, et al. are all citation methods for writing academic papers of various disciplines. kgh31386 gave you a good link, and I will provide you another at the bottom. Here is my take on understanding and explicating why certain pieces of information require citation and others requiring less in detail.

If the information gathered is from an interview, you can paraphrase the content and explicitly state that such information is from interview, health assessment, etc., or put the short exerpt of that interview/verbal assessment verbatim in quotation marks. This is only appropriate when you want to include a small exerpt.

However, the majorityof your paper's content, as aforementioned, is patient history, so, I would suggest paraphrasing as follows because it has to be weaved as the content of your paper, not a quotable portion at all. You may quote portions of that interview to strengthen your statement.

According to the patient, Mr./Ms. XYZ (date of interview) during his/her assessment/interview, he/she reported to having symptoms and signs of such and such...

The above suffices the 'citation' requirement. The purposes of citation in academic writing are 1) to cite other peers' research so that you give them due-credit and avoid committing plagiarism of their ideas and findings; and 2) use their research to bolster your further findings or to provide critique with your new findings and contrast the previous research outcome with yours.

Another way to explain why you do not need citation is that the interview content is your qualitative data (your own data) for which citation is not required. Just like any lab data you report on your research, you just need to state where the data came from (during the interview, etc.).

Good luck.

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