{"title":"A qualitative exploration of the impact of educational social fields on mental health help-seeking in post-primary schools in Northern Ireland.","authors":"Bethany Waterhouse-Bradley, Dagmar Corry, Gerard Leavey","doi":"10.1111/1467-9566.13825","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-9566.13825","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In a study of post-primary students in Northern Ireland, Bourdieu's concepts of cultural capital, habitus and fields are used to explore attitudes towards help-seeking from general practitioners (GPs). Findings from Grammar and Secondary Modern School students are compared using the role of educational fields in influencing help-seeking behaviours for mental health problems. Focus groups were conducted of 54 students at 10 post-primary schools in Northern Ireland, each consisting of 5-7 pupils, stratified by age (13-17 years) and gender. The data were analysed thematically to assess attitudinal and belief patterns within school environments. Participants from both types of schools expressed reluctance to seek help from GPs for mental health concerns. However, the attitudes towards help seeking differ between grammar schools (GSs) and secondary modern schools with regards to (a) the act of help-seeking; (b) service knowledge and medical professionalism; and (c) trust and disclosure. The field of GSs appears to produce students who feel more able and, importantly, more entitled to mental health support from health professionals. While this apparent conference of cultural norms increases some individuals' access to services, work is required to build help-seeking pathways which are responsive to diverse young people.</p>","PeriodicalId":21685,"journal":{"name":"Sociology of health & illness","volume":" ","pages":"e13825"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11684506/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141793387","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Health inequalities and contemporary youth: Young people's accounts of the social determinants of health in an 'austere meritocracy'.","authors":"Gillian Fergie, Katherine Smith, Caroline Vaczy, Mhairi Mackenzie, Shona Hilton","doi":"10.1111/1467-9566.13842","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-9566.13842","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Young people coming of age amidst widespread socioeconomic uncertainty have a unique vantage from which to interpret how social, economic and environmental factors might influence health and the generation of health inequalities. Despite this, only a small number of existing studies of 'lay' understandings of health inequalities have focused on young people. This arts-based qualitative study builds on that body of research, in the context of the UK, to explore how young people make sense of health inequalities. Across two sites, Glasgow and Leeds, six groups of young people (39 in total) took part in online workshops to explore their perspectives. Throughout they engaged with population health research evidence; contributed to group discussions and responded creatively, via visual and performance art and by articulating their own views and experiences. In this paper, we explore how individual and structural explanations for health inequalities emerged, employing concepts from sociological studies of youth to shed light on these accounts. In particular, we argue that the concept of 'austere meritocracy', the persistence of narratives of aspiration and hard work as key to success against an increasingly hostile socio-economic backdrop, helps explain young people's perspectives on health inequalities in the UK.</p>","PeriodicalId":21685,"journal":{"name":"Sociology of health & illness","volume":" ","pages":"e13842"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142473904","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Let 'Pregnant Women Choose the Destiny for Themselves and Their Child'. How Fertility Clinic Digital Platforms Frame Preimplantation Genetic Testing (PGT) in Spain.","authors":"Mauro Turrini, Jorge Otín-Gavín","doi":"10.1111/1467-9566.13876","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-9566.13876","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Preimplantation Genetic Testing (PGT) is used to select in vitro embryos for distinct clinical contexts and purposes. PGT for monogenic conditions (PGT-M), also known as Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD), enables the prevention of passing on a known genetic disorder to one's offspring. Conversely, PGT for aneuploidies (PGT-A), or Preimplantation Genetic Screening (PGS), is used to improve IVF success rates in fertility patients and increase confidence about the health outcomes of potential offspring. Using discourse analysis, we examine how Spanish fertility clinic digital platforms frame these techniques and their associated subjectivity processes. We find: first, an excessively unproblematic portrayal of experimental innovations such as PGT; second, a linguistic, semantic and clinical overlap between 'diagnosis' and 'screening', which increases the genetic responsibility of couples or women without known genetic conditions regarding their prospective children; and third, the use of genomics as a modulator of female fertility and as a means to control maternal age-related decline. Ultimately, this discourse positions PGT as a routine IVF component, serving as an assurance tool for both treatment success and the health of the potential baby. This narrative reflects the speculative turn in assisted reproduction, emphasising new forms of responsibility and choice of would-be mothers.</p>","PeriodicalId":21685,"journal":{"name":"Sociology of health & illness","volume":"47 1","pages":"e13876"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11715153/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142954404","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Stigma and the Inverse Care Law: Experiences of 'Care' for People Living in Marginalised Conditions.","authors":"Michelle Addison, Steph Scott, Clare Bambra, Monique Lhussier","doi":"10.1111/1467-9566.70000","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-9566.70000","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This paper explores the connection between stigma and the Inverse Care Law (ICL) by focussing on the idea that people who have the greatest needs often have the least support from healthcare services. Twenty-four semi-structured interviews were undertaken with people who used class A & B illicit drugs, in the northeast of England. Many of the people in this study who used illicit drugs were not able to access quality healthcare in a timely way to meet their needs because of structural and relational stigma. We discuss four themes: (i) pressure on health services and long waiting lists, (ii) sensitivity to compassion fatigue from staff and impacts on engagement, (iii) complex systems that are difficult to navigate and (iv) stigma and drug use. These themes illuminate the harms of stigma and support Tudor Hart's ICL. Stigma is a key contributor to the inverse experience of good quality healthcare and requires greater attention from policymakers and practitioners. The structural and relational aspects of stigma embedded in healthcare are central to the ICL and reproduce inequities in access to and experience of good quality healthcare, which in turn impacts health inequalities.</p>","PeriodicalId":21685,"journal":{"name":"Sociology of health & illness","volume":"47 1","pages":"e70000"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11744054/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143011059","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Shiva Chandra, Alex Broom, Damien Ridge, Michelle Peterie, Lise Lafferty, Jennifer Broom, Katherine Kenny, Carla Treloar, Tanya Applegate
{"title":"Treatment 'cultures', sexually transmitted infections and the rise of antimicrobial resistance.","authors":"Shiva Chandra, Alex Broom, Damien Ridge, Michelle Peterie, Lise Lafferty, Jennifer Broom, Katherine Kenny, Carla Treloar, Tanya Applegate","doi":"10.1111/1467-9566.13832","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-9566.13832","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In this article, we examine the current management of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), in the context of rising antimicrobial resistance (AMR), through the lens of 'treatment cultures'. Prevailing treatment cultures-including the prominence of syndromic care for STIs-foster certain possibilities and foreclose others, with important consequences for countering AMR. Drawing on qualitative interviews with STI professionals, experts and industry representatives, we unpack these stakeholders' accounts of STI treatment cultures, drawing out the importance of socio-historical (i.e. taboo and stigma), political-economic (i.e. perceptions of significance, profit-making and prioritisation) and subjective (i.e. patient contexts and reflexivity) dimensions therein. In developing this critical account of how treatment cultures are formed, reproduced and indeed resisted, we reveal how such discourses and practices render the reining in of AMR and shifting antibiotic use difficult, and yet, how productive engagement remains key to any proposed solutions. As such, the article contributes to our understanding of AMR as a highly diversified field, through our exploration of the bio-social dimensions of resistance as they relate to the case of STIs.</p>","PeriodicalId":21685,"journal":{"name":"Sociology of health & illness","volume":" ","pages":"e13832"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11733835/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142111622","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Medicalising agents? Teachers' uncertainty and emerging expertise in the age of inclusion policy and medicalisation in Israel.","authors":"Galia Plotkin-Amrami, Yariv Feniger, Yam Umansky","doi":"10.1111/1467-9566.13849","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-9566.13849","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a paradigmatic case for childhood medicalisation. Critical studies of medicalisation have pointed to the increasing clinical role of schools, with teachers tending to rely on medical treatment of students with ADHD and are perceived as a primary source of diagnostic information. Based on 27 semi-structured interviews with teachers working in two Israeli elementary and middle schools, this research explored how teachers mediate the medicalisation process and understand their responsibilities in the classroom amidst the emphasis on inclusion in contemporary Israel. We found that teachers offer a wide range of explanations of the disorder and its prevalence, and their attitudes to medication are ambivalent. We argue that teachers develop pedagogical (lay) expertise in the field of ADHD in parallel with and in opposition to medical solutions. Such expertise is based on practical experience and close interaction with students. A top-down ideological imperative of inclusion, combined with uncertainty about ADHD, has generated a bottom-up set of preformative practices of 'containment' of troubled students. Teachers' emerging knowledge and practices raise questions about the relationship between medicalisation, policy, expertise and the pragmatic value of medical categories when applied outside the medical establishment.</p>","PeriodicalId":21685,"journal":{"name":"Sociology of health & illness","volume":" ","pages":"1962-1982"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142353086","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"COVID companions: Exploring pets as social support.","authors":"Lynn Sudbury-Riley","doi":"10.1111/1467-9566.13820","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-9566.13820","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This paper investigates the social support provided by domestic animals to humans during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study comprises interviews with 39 British and American pet owners during March 2021, the point at which the UK had recently emerged from the third national lockdown and US states were under various restrictions. A thematic network approach to data analysis revealed four global themes, illustrating how pets provided buffers to the stress of the pandemic, facilitated ontological security by maintaining a sense of routine and purpose, offered myriad types of emotional support and enhanced and enabled wider social support. Taken together, these results reinforce and extend knowledge pertaining to the importance of companion animals for social support.</p>","PeriodicalId":21685,"journal":{"name":"Sociology of health & illness","volume":" ","pages":"1923-1941"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141789040","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Shadreck Mwale, Andy Northcott, Imogen Lambert, Katie Featherstone
{"title":"'Becoming restrained': Conceptualising restrictive practices in the care of people living with dementia in acute hospital settings.","authors":"Shadreck Mwale, Andy Northcott, Imogen Lambert, Katie Featherstone","doi":"10.1111/1467-9566.13812","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-9566.13812","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The use of restrictive practices within health and social care has attracted policy and practice attention, predominantly focusing on children and young people with mental health conditions, learning disabilities and autism. However, despite growing appreciation of the need to improve care quality for people living with dementia (PLWD), the potentially routine use of restrictive practices in their care has received little attention. PLWD are at significant risk of experiencing restrictive practices during unscheduled acute hospital admissions. In everyday routine hospital care of PLWD, concerns about subtle and less visible forms of restrictive practices and their impacts remain. This article draws on Deleuze's concepts of 'assemblage' and 'event' to conceptualise restrictive practices as institutional, interconnection social and political attitudes and organisational cultural practices. We argue that this approach illuminates the diverse ways restrictive practices are used, legitimatised and perpetuated in the care of PLWD. We examine restrictive practices in acute care contexts, understanding their use requires examining the wider socio-political, organisational cultures and professional practice contexts in which clinical practices occurs. Whereas 'events' and 'assemblages' have predominantly been used to examine embodied entanglements in diverse health contexts, examining restrictive practices as a structural assemblage extends the application of this theoretical framework.</p>","PeriodicalId":21685,"journal":{"name":"Sociology of health & illness","volume":" ","pages":"1730-1748"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141535237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Emma-Louise Seal, Renata Kokanović, Jacinthe Flore, Tamara Borovica, Jillian H Broadbear, Louise McCutcheon, Sharon Lawn
{"title":"Talking about borderline personality disorder, shaping care: The multiple doings of narratives.","authors":"Emma-Louise Seal, Renata Kokanović, Jacinthe Flore, Tamara Borovica, Jillian H Broadbear, Louise McCutcheon, Sharon Lawn","doi":"10.1111/1467-9566.13804","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-9566.13804","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article focuses on the narratives that circulate about borderline personality disorder (BPD) in health-care settings in Australia and the effects such narratives can have on how people practice and seek out care. People with a BPD diagnosis frequently access health-care services, often encountering stigma and discrimination. Drawing on narrative theory, we critically unpack the circulation and capacities of BPD narratives and the ways they can often contribute to poor and troubling experiences. This article is based on qualitative interviews with people living with a BPD diagnosis, as well as health practitioners who work with people with a BPD diagnosis. Our findings identified insidious and powerful BPD narratives that circulate in health-care settings, particularly in short-term, acute, or non-specialist contexts, such as emergency departments and in-patient units. These narratives influenced the ways that participants both practiced and sought out care. To improve health service quality for people with a BPD diagnosis, or those experiencing mental distress, it is important to challenge the sociocultural-political norms and relations that can influence approaches to care and practice. Disrupting and reframing negative BPD narratives and raising awareness about the impact of stories that are told about BPD have the potential to generate social change.</p>","PeriodicalId":21685,"journal":{"name":"Sociology of health & illness","volume":" ","pages":"1709-1729"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141262879","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Parental illness work across the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder diagnostic journey.","authors":"Tom Nicholson, Richard Lee","doi":"10.1111/1467-9566.13817","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-9566.13817","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The process of referral, assessment, and diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) within the UK is often protracted. Given that parents are frequently the instigators of the diagnostic process, understanding the experience of parents is important. Drawing on findings from a longitudinal study, this article explores how the parental experience of the ADHD diagnostic journey includes three significant and distinct forms of 'illness work'. Twenty-one semi-structured serial interviews were conducted over a 2-year period with seven parents of children on the ADHD diagnostic journey in North East England. We present three significant forms of parental illness work: (1) The 'diagnostic quest', parental work recognising and fighting for their children's needs and selfhood, seeking diagnosis and engaging with systems, (2) 'self-biographical illness work', the personal parental biographical response to the diagnostic journey and (3) 'child biographical illness work and recontextualizing the child', parental biographical adjustment and recontextualisation of their children. We advance Rasmussen et al.'s (2021) model by demonstrating its usefulness in understanding how parents with a personal ADHD diagnosis experience biographical disruption or cohesion in response to their children's diagnosis. That a child's diagnosis leads parents with ADHD to experience a self-biographical cohesive or disruptive response is a unique and significant finding.</p>","PeriodicalId":21685,"journal":{"name":"Sociology of health & illness","volume":" ","pages":"1647-1667"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141634484","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}