Original Contribution to the Theory of Patient-Centred Care in Nigerian Radiography Practice: Developing a Culturally Informed Model

Patient-centred care frameworks in radiography practice have been developed primarily in high-income Western healthcare contexts and may not adequately account for the cultural, communication, and structural dimensions that shape patient experience and radiographer-patient relationships in Nigerian healthcare. This study makes an original theoretical contribution by developing a culturally informed model of patient-centred radiography practice for the Nigerian context. The model is developed through a constructivist grounded theory methodology applied to three data sources: interpretive interviews with 80 patients across six hospitals representing all geopolitical zones, exploring their experiences of radiography care; focus groups with 60 radiographers exploring their conceptualisation of patient-centred practice; and observational fieldwork across 120 radiography patient interactions at diverse Nigerian healthcare settings. Constant comparative analysis, theoretical sampling, and saturation procedures generate the substantive theory. Available patient-centred care literature from Nigerian radiography identifies cultural assumptions around health authority, family involvement in imaging decisions, language barriers, and illness explanatory beliefs as Nigerian-specific dimensions absent from standard patient-centred care frameworks. The Constructivist Grounded Theory methodology of Charmaz and the Mabunde Model of African patient-centred care provide the theoretical reference points. The original Nigerian Culturally Informed Radiography Patient-Centred Care Model identifies four theory-specific constructs: Communal Decision Facilitation, Linguistic Dignity, Explanatory Bridge Communication, and Contextual Compassion. The model generates testable propositions for subsequent quantitative validation studies. Keywords: patient-centred care, culturally informed model, Nigerian radiography, grounded theory, patient experience.