Complaining about chronic pain
Article Abstract:
Author's Abstract, COPYRIGHT 1999, Elsevier Science Ltd. This paper examines how a group of working class people describes and experiences chronic pain. This hermeneutical-phenomenological study concentrates on the lived body of pain from three perspectives, drawing on interviews with 14 people who were attending a pain management program. First I consider the terms in which pain is circumscribed in the narratives, stories told in the context of learning to manage pain. These terms are polarities, ways of specifying and legitimating pain in relation to "mind" and "body". Pain, in the discursive polarities that define it, is the private property of an individual, who must in some fashion prove that pain exists in an objective manner. The speaker, in this discourse, stands as the one responsible for the production of pain. In the second part, the analysis turns to what this discourse reveals about pain as a lived body phenomenon. Here the analysis centers upon the torment of having to inhabit the intolerable, upon how pain unmakes the lifeworld of the sufferer, and how, simultaneously, people make pain. The place of pain is the body, as body-in-place. The place of pain is at the boundaries of human dwelling, a kind of non-place, expressed metaphorically as "prison" or homelessness." Finally, after these considerations of how pain is described, in part three, I turn to the act of "saying" pain, that is, to the narratives as addressed to someone else. The participants were not simply dispersing information; they were saying something to me. The narratives had the form of complaints. The form of the narratives, in the context of the pain program, was a quasi-legal call to rectify wrongs. Keywords: Chronic pain; Phenomenology; Mind-body dualism; Stress; Narratives
Publication Name: Social Science & Medicine
Subject: Social sciences
ISSN: 0277-9536
Year: 1999
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Does financial hardship account for elevated psychological distress in lone mothers?
Article Abstract:
Author's Abstract, COPYRIGHT 1999, Elsevier Science Ltd. Lone mothers have been shown to have higher levels of psychological distress than married mothers, but it is not clear how this difference arises. Using data from the 1959 British birth cohort followed to age 33, we investigated alternative explanations for the excess distress of lone mothers. Logistic regression models were used to estimate odds ratios for distress (measured using the Malaise Inventory) in lone vs married mothers. Odds ratios were adjusted to assess the contribution of explanatory factors. At age 33, psychological distress was greated among lone than married mothers (OR 2.59, 95% CI 1.97, 3.41). The odds ratio decreased to 1.43 (95% CI 1.02, 2.01) after adjustment for all explanatory factors (prior psychological distress, age of youngest child and number of children in the household, and contemporary measures of financial hardship, employment, and social support). Attenuation of the odds ratio was most marked after taking account of financial hardship. Psychological distress was greater among divorced mothers than never married mothers, though not significantly (OR=1.70, 95% CI 0.88, 3.28). This difference was not explained by the factors examined, and was not due to the immediate distress associated with a recent divorce. Elevated psychological distress of lone mothers appears to be related to financial hardship, while other explanations, including social support and selection, have a more modest impact. Not all of the elevated psychological distress among lone mothers was accounted for, particularly among divorced lone mothers. Keywords: Financial hardship; Psychological distress; Lone motherhood; Birth cohort study
Publication Name: Social Science & Medicine
Subject: Social sciences
ISSN: 0277-9536
Year: 1999
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What makes new mothers unhappy: psychological distress one year after birth in Italy and France
Article Abstract:
Author's Abstract, COPYRIGHT 1999, Elsevier Science Ltd. The aim of this report is to present results on the factors associated with psychological distress in 724 Italian and 629 French women 12 months after birth. The prevalence of distress was ascertained by the 12-item Goldberg Health Questionnaire (GHQ), using a cut-off score of >5. Results show that, in both countries, after controlling for previous psychological health, the variables significantly associated wtih mothers' distress were: an unsatisfactory couple relationship; lack of a confidant; a baby with serious health problems, financial worries. In Italy, also being an older mother and a discrepancy between actual and desired employment status were associated with a high GHQ score. These results point out to the high prevalence of mothers' psychological distress in Latin countries too, and stress the role played by family and social factors.
Publication Name: Social Science & Medicine
Subject: Social sciences
ISSN: 0277-9536
Year: 1999
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