Development of critically reflective dialogues in communities of health professionals

Critically reflective dialogues (CRD) are important for knowledge sharing and creating meaning in communities. CRD includes different aspects: being open about mistakes, critical opinion sharing, asking for and giving feedback, experimentation, challenging groupthink and research utilisation. In this article we explore whether CRD aspects change over time, through a study of two dialogues each from six different communities of veterinary health professionals. Change was studied from the perspective of observations, through analysing transcripts of dialogues, and from the perspective of community members' perceptions, through an evaluative discussion with members. The results showed that some communities became more open about mistakes, a finding that is related to an increase in trust. Other observed aspects of CRD seemed to be fairly stable over time. Community members perceived research utilisation and asking for and giving feedback to have been increased. From an analysis of perceptions of the community members it emerged that limited interaction could be associated with the epistemological conceptions of community members.