Clowns are often connected to entertainment and circus, but hospital clowns do more than that. Hospital clowns seek to improve the experience of hospital stay and support the wellbeing of patients and their families by creating moments of good mood and connection. For example, interacting with a clown while waiting to go under anesthesia has been shown to reduce anxiety (Dionigi et al. 2014), and visits from a clown in a psychiatric ward have been reported to reduce patients’ aggression and self-injury (Higueras et al. 2006). What is more, hospital clowns have a confidentiality obligation (see e.g. Finnish hospital Clowns 2023), which means that patients and their family members can trust the clowns with their personal matters. Across the world, hospital clowns are increasingly ranging their activities to nursing homes in which their interaction with the residents has been seen to increase the quality of life (Rämgård et al 2016). The purpose of the study is to analyze how listening is used as a resource of clownery in nursing home environment. Our data is collected from three Finnish nursing homes and consists of video recorded interactions between the hospital clowns and nursing home residents, and ethnographic observations.

Our preliminary observation is that the hospital clowns encourage nursing home residents to share their thoughts and memories by producing intensified and theatrical responses to their turns of talk. As many residents have difficulties in expressing themselves, the clowns carefully perceive both verbal and behavioral clues, and also confirm their interpretations by asking directly. However, sometimes the residents confide serious or even traumatic experiences to the clowns, which challenges the clowns’ methods of active listening.

References
Finnish Hospital Clowns 2023. Sairaalaklovnit. English webpage: https://sairaalaklovnit.fi/en/
Higueras A, Carretero-Dios H, P M, Idini E, Ortiz A, Rincón F, et al. 2006: Effects of a humor-centered activity on disruptive behavior in patients in a general hospital psychiatric ward. Int J Clin Health Psychol. 2006:6, 53–64.
Dionigi A, Sangiorgi D, Flangini R. 2014: Clown intervention to reduce preoperative anxiety in children and parents: A randomized controlled trial. J Health Psychol. 2014:19, 369–380.
Rämgård M, Carlson E, & Mangrio E. 2016: Strategies for diversity: medical clowns in dementia care: an ethnographic study. BMC geriatrics, 16, 1−9.