Asking for help online: Lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans youth, self-harm and articulating the 'failed' self
This study focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans young people who are a population group with an elevated risk of suicide and self-harm, and little is known about their help-seeking behaviour. Utilising qualitative virtual methods, lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans youth web-based discussions about seeking help for suicidal feelings and self-harming were investigated. Findings from a thematic analysis indicate that these young people wanted assistance but found it difficult to (1) ask for help, (2) articulate emotional distress and (3) ‘tell’ their selves as ‘failed’. This analysis suggests tha...
Source: Health: - November 2, 2015 Category: Global & Universal Authors: McDermott, E. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Adolescents' sense-making of alcohol-related risks: The role of drinking situations and social settings
The article explores how young people understand the risks of alcohol use and how these understandings are associated with differing drinking situations and social settings. By taking account of situational factors, the aim is to demonstrate how young people have highly nuanced notions of drinking styles that suit different drinking situations and of associated risks. The data for the research were gathered in 18 group interviews with Finnish ninth graders aged 14–15 years. Short film clips portraying young people in different drinking situations were used as stimulus material for the interviews. Data analysis focuss...
Source: Health: - September 4, 2015 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Katainen, A., Lehto, A.-S., Maunu, A. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Prising open the 'black box': An epistemological critique of discursive constructions of scaling up the provision of mental health care in Africa
This article seeks to open up the ‘black box’ of international research on scaling up the provision of mental health care in Africa, unearthing the hidden assumptions and power dynamics underpinning the knowledge produced. It insists that gaining a better understanding of care provision demands that we not only fill the gaps in knowledge but also problematize the assumptions upon which existing knowledge is based. This article demonstrates how two interrelated paradigms are strongly mediating research in this area – those of ‘scientific evidence’ and ‘human rights’. Drawing on rece...
Source: Health: - September 4, 2015 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Cooper, S. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Contingencies of the will: Uses of harm reduction and the disease model of addiction among health care practitioners
The concept of addiction as a disease is becoming firmly established in medical knowledge and practice at the same time as the logics of the harm reduction approach are gaining broader acceptance. How health care practitioners understand and intervene upon drug use among their patients is complicated by these two models. While harm reduction can be understood as a form of governmentality wherein drug-taking individuals express their regulated autonomy through self-governance, the notion of addiction as a disease removes the option of self-governance through negating the will of the individual. Through analysis of qualitati...
Source: Health: - September 4, 2015 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Szott, K. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Tainted blood: Probing safety practices in the Danish blood system
The existing literature on donor screening in transfusion medicine tends to distinguish between social concerns about discrimination and medical concerns about safety. In this article, we argue that the bifurcation into social and medical concerns is problematic. We build our case on a qualitative study of the historical rise and current workings of safety practices in the Danish blood system. Here, we identify a strong focus on contamination in order to avoid ‘tainted blood’, at the expense of working with risks that could be avoided through enhanced blood monitoring practices. Of further significance to this ...
Source: Health: - September 4, 2015 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Deleuran, I., Sheikh, Z. A., Hoeyer, K. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Resolute efforts to cure hepatitis C: Understanding patients' reasons for completing antiviral treatment
Antiviral treatment for hepatitis C is usually difficult, demanding, and debilitating and has long offered modest prospects of successful cure. Most people who may need treatment have faced stigma of an illness associated with drug and alcohol misuse and thus may be deemed poor candidates for treatment, while completing a course of treatment typically calls for resolve and responsibility. Patients’ efforts and their reasons for completing treatment have received scant attention in hepatitis C clinical policy discourse that instead focuses on problems of adherence and patients’ expected failures. Thus, we conduc...
Source: Health: - September 4, 2015 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Clark, J. A., Gifford, A. L. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
A 'new normal': Exploring the disruption of a poor prognostic cancer diagnosis using interviews and participant-produced photographs
Cancer survival is increasing, and many people are living years after cancer treatment. For example, it is predicted that 46 per cent of men and 56 per cent of women diagnosed in 2007 in England and Wales will survive their cancer for 5 years or more. However, ‘survivors’ may be living with significant physical, psychological and social disruption caused by their illness. Furthermore, huge disparities exist in the outcomes for different cancer ‘types’, and there has been little investigation of those living with ‘poor prognostic’ cancers. Our aim was to explore the experience of living a...
Source: Health: - September 4, 2015 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Balmer, C., Griffiths, F., Dunn, J. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Medications, youth therapeutic cultures and performance consumptions: A sociological approach
This article analyses performance consumptions among young people. The theme is explored along two main axes. The first concerns the social heterogeneity in this field, considered on two levels: the different purposes for those investments – cognitive/mental and physical performance; and the different social contexts – university and work – where performance practices and dispositions may be fostered. The second axis explores the roles of pharmacological and natural consumptions, and their interrelationship, in the dissemination of these practices. The empirical data for this analysis were drawn from an o...
Source: Health: - July 6, 2015 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Lopes, N., Clamote, T., Raposo, H., Pegado, E., Rodrigues, C. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Exploring the relationship between social class, mental illness stigma and mental health literacy using British national survey data
The relationship between social class and mental illness stigma has received little attention in recent years. At the same time, the concept of mental health literacy has become an increasingly popular way of framing knowledge and understanding of mental health issues. British Social Attitudes survey data present an opportunity to unpack the relationships between these concepts and social class, an important task given continuing mental health inequalities. Regression analyses were undertaken which centred on depression and schizophrenia vignettes, with an asthma vignette used for comparison. The National Statistics Socio-...
Source: Health: - July 6, 2015 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Holman, D. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Towards a middle-range theory of mental health and well-being effects of employment transitions: Findings from a qualitative study on unemployment during the 2009-2010 economic recession
This article builds upon previous theoretical work on job loss as a status passage to help explain how people’s experiences of involuntary unemployment affected their mental well-being during the 2009–2010 economic recession. It proposes a middle-range theory that interprets employment transitions as status passages and suggests that their health and well-being effects depend on the personal and social meanings that people give to them, which are called properties of the transitions. The analyses, which used a thematic approach, are based on the findings of a qualitative study undertaken in Bradford (North Engl...
Source: Health: - July 6, 2015 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Giuntoli, G., Hughes, S., Karban, K., South, J. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
The experience of mental distress and recovery among people involved with the service user/survivor movement
This article examines how the personal experiences of mental distress of people involved in the British service user/survivor movement were shaped or transformed by this involvement, and the impact of involvement on their recovery journeys. The analysis was based on 12 in-depth interviews with service users/survivors who are, or were once, involved with the service user/survivor movement. Three large themes were identified regarding the ways in which social movement involvement affected the personal experience of mental distress: (a) making sense and reframing mental distress, (b) the social experience of involvement and (...
Source: Health: - July 6, 2015 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Chassot, C. S., Mendes, F. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Resilient moves: Tinkering with practice theory to generate new ways of thinking about using resilience
In conclusion, we argue practice theory’s attention to context as more than mere backdrop to action helps shift inequality theorising beyond the individual and reproduction towards deeper, detailed social understandings of transformation and change. (Source: Health:)
Source: Health: - July 6, 2015 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Aranda, K., Hart, A. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
The language of sedation in end-of-life care: The ethical reasoning of care providers in three countries
The application of ethically controversial medical procedures may differ from one place to another. Drawing on a keyword and text-mining analysis of 156 interviews with doctors and nurses involved in end-of-life care (‘care providers’), differences between countries in care providers’ ethical rationales for the use of sedation are reported. In the United Kingdom, an emphasis on titrating doses proportionately against symptoms is more likely, maintaining consciousness where possible. The potential harms of sedation are perceived to be the potential hastening of social as well as biological death. In Belgiu...
Source: Health: - July 6, 2015 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Seale, C., Raus, K., Bruinsma, S., van der Heide, A., Sterckx, S., Mortier, F., Payne, S., Mathers, N., Rietjens, J., On behalf of the UNBIASED consortium, Addington-Hall, Anquinet, Brown, Bruinsma, Deliens, Mathers, Mortier, Payne, Raus, Rietjens, Seale, Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Postpartum depression in refugee and asylum-seeking women in Canada: A critical health psychology perspective
Canada has one of the world’s largest refugee resettlement programs in the world. Just over 48 percent of Canadian refugees are women, with many of them of childbearing age and pregnant. Refugee and asylum-seeking women in Canada face a five times greater risk of developing postpartum depression than Canadian-born women. Mainstream psychological approaches to postpartum depression emphasize individual-level risk factors (e.g. hormones, thoughts, emotions) and individualized treatments (e.g. psychotherapy, medication). This conceptualization is problematic when applied to refugee and asylum-seeking women because ...
Source: Health: - April 20, 2015 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Brown-Bowers, A., McShane, K., Wilson-Mitchell, K., Gurevich, M. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
The role of assessment packages for diagnostic consultations: A conversation analytic perspective
This article reports a conversation analysis of assessment package consultations. Healthcare delivery packages belong to a highly structured mode of healthcare delivery, in which specific courses of healthcare interventions related to assessment and treatment are predefined, both as to timing and content. Assessment packages are widely used in an increasing number of medical specialities; however, there is a lack of knowledge about how packaged assessment influences the interaction between doctor and patient. In this study, we investigate the final consultation in assessment packages, which is when the final clarification ...
Source: Health: - April 20, 2015 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Rossen, C. B., Buus, N., Stenager, E., Stenager, E. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
