Anti-normative lifestyles in cardiac rehabilitation: Underprivileged men's post-heart incident lives
This study qualitatively examines socially and materially deprived men’s (n = 20) noncompliance with cardiovascular health guidelines following a medical intervention to the heart. By drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s sociocultural theory of practice, results indicate that precarious living conditions obstruct long-term physical recovery and illness prevention by underemphasizing the value of "health capital" and reducing the capacity to sustain lifestyle change. This study calls into question health policies that have little to no consideration of embodied practical knowledge and lived experiences. (Source: Health:)
Source: Health: - July 31, 2014 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Dumas, A., Savage, M., Stuart, S. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Being 'rational' and being 'human': How National Health Service rationing decisions are constructed as rational by resource allocation panels
The English National Health Service Constitution states that patients have the right to expect all decisions about access to medicines and treatments to be made ‘rationally’. Rationality in health care can be framed as instrumental, institutional or practical. In this article, we present a case example from an ethnographic study of the work of ‘Individual Funding Request’ panels to explore how rationality is enacted and accounted for in deliberations about the rationing of health care in the National Health Service. Our rhetorical analysis highlights how an embodied, practical rationality emerges as...
Source: Health: - July 31, 2014 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Russell, J., Greenhalgh, T. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
The merit of sociological accounts of disorder: The Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder case
This article argues in favor of a sociological perspective on health and illness, drawing on recognized positions from the philosophy of health and illness about how to demarcate disorder from non-disorder. The argument specifies that a normative context in which bodies or behaviors are disvalued is a necessary component for identifying what constitutes a disorder, as this normative context allows material differences to be understood as dysfunctional and pathological. Descriptions of material states in themselves are insufficient to distinguish what is legitimately a disorder; some evaluative stance toward those states is...
Source: Health: - June 4, 2014 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Bowden, G. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
'There's a lot of tasks that can be done by any': Findings from an ethnographic study into work and organisation in UK community crisis resolution and home treatment services
This article arises from a larger ethnographic study (in which 34 interviews were conducted with practitioners, managers and service users) designed to generate data in these and related areas. Underpinned by systems thinking and sociological theories of the division of labour, the article examines the workplace contributions of mental health professionals and support staff. In a fast-moving environment, the work which was done, how and by whom, reflected wider professional jurisdictions and a recognisable patterning by organisational forces. System characteristics including variable shift-by-shift team composition and req...
Source: Health: - June 4, 2014 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Hannigan, B. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
'It seemed churlish not to': How living non-directed kidney donors construct their altruism
Our objective was to explore how prospective altruistic kidney donors construct their decision to donate. Using a qualitative design and biographical-narrative semi-structured interviews, we aimed to produce text for analysis on two levels: the social implications for subjectivity and practice and a tentative psychodynamic explanation of the participants’ psychological investment in the discourses they used. A total of six prospective altruistic kidney donors were interviewed. A psychosocial approach to the analysis was taken. In-depth discourse analysis integrated Foucauldian with psycho-discursive approaches and ps...
Source: Health: - June 4, 2014 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Challenor, J., Watts, J. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Organ donation as transition work: Policy discourse and clinical practice in The Netherlands
An increasing number of patients become eligible for organ transplants. In the Netherlands, at the level of policy discourse, growing waiting lists are often referred to as a persistent "shortage" of organs, producing a "public health crisis." In this way, organ donation is presented as an ethical, social, and medical necessity. Likewise, policy discourse offers a range of seemingly unambiguous solutions: improving logistical infrastructure at the level of hospitals, developing organizational and legal protocols, as well as public information campaigns. Instead of taking these problem and solution definitions as given, we ...
Source: Health: - June 4, 2014 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Paul, K. T., Avezaat, C. J., Ijzermans, J. N., Friele, R. D., Bal, R. A. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
'A post-transplant person': Narratives of heart or lung transplantation and intensive care unit delirium
Exploring patients’ narratives can lead to new understandings about perceived illness states. Intensive Care Unit delirium is when people experience transitory hallucinations, delusions or paranoia in the Intensive Care Unit and little is known about how this experience affects individuals who have had a heart or lung transplant. A total of 11 participants were recruited from two heart and lung transplant services and were invited to tell their story of transplant and Intensive Care Unit delirium. A narrative analysis was conducted and the findings were presented as a shared story. This shared story begins with death...
Source: Health: - June 4, 2014 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Flynn, K., Daiches, A., Malpus, Z., Yonan, N., Sanchez, M. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Networks of knowledge or just old wives' tales?: A diary-based analysis of women's self-care practices and everyday lay expertise
In this study, we utilise solicited diaries with women aged 60–65 years drawn from the 1946–1951 cohort of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health to capture the temporal dimension of their therapeutic engagement. Focusing on 30 active complementary and alternative medicine users, we explore women’s experiences of managing their health, illness and well-being over a 1-month period. The themes that emerge from their diaries illustrate the day-to-day enactment of lay expertise through informal knowledge networks, practices of self-trialling and experimentation and the moralities underpinni...
Source: Health: - June 4, 2014 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Broom, A., Meurk, C., Adams, J., Sibbritt, D. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Contextualising eating problems in individual diet counselling
This article takes the position that the complexity and contextual nature of individual eating problems needs to be addressed in a more systematic and nuanced way than is usually the case in diet counselling, motivational interviewing and health coaching. We suggest the use of narrative practice as a critical and context-sensitive counselling approach to eating problems. Principles of externalisation and co-researching are combined within a counselling framework that employs logistic, social and discursive eating problems as analytic categories. Using cases from a health clinic situated at the Metropolitan University Colle...
Source: Health: - April 23, 2014 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Kristensen, S. T., Koster, A. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Exploring the relationship between multi-morbidity, resilience and social connectedness across the lifecourse
Multi-morbidity is receiving considerable attention in public policy, health and social care. From the perspective of the individual, multi-morbidity is a more complex experience than solely having a clinical diagnosis. In this article, we will argue that understanding multi-morbidity can be facilitated by considering the relationship between adversity (in this case multi-morbidity), resilience and social connectedness within a life course framework. This provides an approach that can capture the dynamics of social relationships, social connectedness and the fluctuations in the experience of multi-morbidity. We draw on a q...
Source: Health: - April 23, 2014 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Ong, B. N., Richardson, J. C., Porter, T., Grime, J. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
"Mauled by a Bear": Narrative analysis of self-injury among adolescents in US news, 2007-2012
This study analyzes 78 news accounts of self-injury among adolescents in the United States from 2007 to 2012, using critical cultural studies as a theoretical foundation and a methodology informed by Kenneth Burke’s dramatism. Narrative elements within the sample are examined in relationship to one another in order to reveal implicit meanings within the news stories. Looking across the sample, I then use a framework developed by Labov and Waletzky to examine a dominant meta-narrative that downplays social causes of self-injury—notably, various forms of trauma such as childhood sexual abuse—and instead fra...
Source: Health: - April 23, 2014 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Bareiss, W. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Treatment resistant depression in primary care: Co-constructing difficult encounters
Many patients with depression do not recover despite medication or therapy. Individuals with treatment resistant depression often have co-morbid anxiety, personality difficulties and drug or alcohol misuse and have been characterised as difficult, heartsink or problem personalities by general practitioners. Yet critical studies of interaction in medical settings suggest that the context may have a role in constructing the patient. A total of 12 audio-recorded routine consultations were analysed following guidelines for qualitative analysis of medical discourse. The interpretation focused on ways in which the context and st...
Source: Health: - April 23, 2014 Category: Global & Universal Authors: McPherson, S., Byng, R., Oxley, D. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Transformations of self and sexuality: Psychologically modified experiences in the context of forensic mental health
Forensic mental health inpatients in medium-secure settings have a limited capacity for sexual expression during their stay in hospital. This is due to a number of factors, including a lack of willingness on behalf of staff to engage with sexual issues, as a result of safety fears and ambiguity regarding the ability of the patient to consent. Furthermore, UK forensic medium-secure units do not provide conjugal suites for patients to have sexual relations, with their spouse or other patients. To date, there is no empirical research on how forensic psychiatric patients (or service users) manage their sexuality, while in hosp...
Source: Health: - April 23, 2014 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Brown, S. D., Reavey, P., Kanyeredzi, A., Batty, R. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Diagnostic vertigo: The journey to diagnosis in systemic lupus erythematosus
Systemic lupus erythematosus (lupus) is a complex condition characterised by wide ranging symptoms that are sometimes transient in nature. This makes recognising and diagnosing lupus particularly challenging for both patients and practitioners. The diagnostic process in this condition is a complex interplay between the boundaries of knowledge and power, control, integrity and legitimacy, which are (re)constructed and (re)negotiated between contemporary medicine, the patient and practitioner. Utilising data generated through a qualitative research design, this article illustrates some of the challenges lupus presents in the...
Source: Health: - April 23, 2014 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Price, E., Walker, E. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Book Review: Martyn Pickersgill and Ira Van Keulen (eds), Sociological Reflections on the Neurosciences
(Source: Health:)
Source: Health: - February 27, 2014 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Hollin, G. J. Tags: Book Reviews Source Type: research
