{"title":"Experiential Trajectories of Weight Gain: A Qualitative Study of People With Larger Bodies' Understanding of Their Weight Changes Throughout Life in Norway.","authors":"Yngvild Sørebø Danielsen, Vivian Woodfin, Signe Hjelen Stige","doi":"10.1177/10497323251342217","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10497323251342217","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This qualitative study explores how people in Norway seeking treatment for 'obesity' experience and understand their weight development in a life-course perspective. Participants were adults (<i>N</i> = 10) who had recently attended a specialist lifestyle intervention. The study employed a hermeneutic phenomenological approach. Semi-structured in-depth life story interviews were conducted and were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis and narrative perspectives. Results were categorized according to two dimensions: understanding versus it's a mystery, and agency versus helplessness. Based on these two dimensions, four trajectories for experienced weight development were formulated: (1) \"Snowballing weight gain\" (understanding but limited agency); (2) \"I see the path that leads here\" (understanding and agency); (3) \"Why me? Grasping at straws\" (limited understanding and limited agency); and (4) \"What happened? Making the best of it\" (limited understanding but agency). Most participants found it hard to narrate the causes of their weight gain. The experience was not only that gaining weight was a problem but also narrating about a \"problematic body\" that is a part of who you are makes you both an object and a subject in the narrative. However, adverse life events and stress resulting in emotional eating were the most prominent themes presented. Agency was found to be impacted by trauma reactions, emotional pain, and repeated weight loss attempts. Trauma and emotional pain were at the core of our participants' narratives about the causality of their weight gain, and more trauma-informed approaches are warranted for people with larger bodies in need of health care.</p>","PeriodicalId":48437,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Health Research","volume":" ","pages":"10497323251342217"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144217257","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}
Ian Cowell, Alison McGregor, Peter O'Sullivan, Kieran O'Sullivan, Ross Poyton, Veronika Schoeb, Ged Murtagh
{"title":"A Detailed Analysis of How Physiotherapists \"Give\" Reassurance for Patients' Concerns in Back Pain Consultations.","authors":"Ian Cowell, Alison McGregor, Peter O'Sullivan, Kieran O'Sullivan, Ross Poyton, Veronika Schoeb, Ged Murtagh","doi":"10.1177/10497323251320874","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10497323251320874","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Reassuring patients with low back pain to reduce their concerns is important for good clinical practice. However, guidelines provide little information on how physiotherapists should best deliver reassurance. This study explores how \"reassurance\" is enacted by physiotherapists and back pain patients during an initial consultation. The research setting was primary care. Twenty initial physiotherapy consultations were video-recorded and transcribed. The patient-physiotherapist interactions were analyzed using conversation analysis, a qualitative observational method. These data highlighted how some physiotherapists gave reassurance directed by what they considered to be important but not always grounded in patients' expressed concerns. We also observed examples where physiotherapists developed a better understanding of patients' concerns, which provided more patient-focused and targeted reassurance with less interactional \"trouble\" and greater patient affiliation. These findings suggest that physiotherapists should develop a good understanding of patients' concerns, and take them into consideration, before delivering their reassurance. This will require that physiotherapists be responsive to patients' concerns and adapt their communication to the individual needs of the patient.</p>","PeriodicalId":48437,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Health Research","volume":" ","pages":"10497323251320874"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-06-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144200492","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}
Nicklas Neuman, Elin Lövestam, Jacob Karlén, Pernilla Sandvik
{"title":"Sensing Sociality: Disruptions of Social Life When Living With Chemosensory Dysfunctions After COVID-19.","authors":"Nicklas Neuman, Elin Lövestam, Jacob Karlén, Pernilla Sandvik","doi":"10.1177/10497323241278551","DOIUrl":"10.1177/10497323241278551","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Taste and smell are of direct importance in most social interactions. Radical disruptions in these senses can, therefore, substantially disrupt sociality. This paper focuses on the experiences of a particular type of disruption: persistent chemosensory dysfunctions after COVID-19. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 30 patients undergoing treatment for chemosensory dysfunctions and analyzed the ways in which their experiences have influenced social relations and activities, particularly regarding food and eating. The findings reveal that these dysfunctions have made the participants markedly aware that food and eating are pivotal to full participation in social life. As is smell, both surrounding smells and the perception of one's own smell, with dysfunctions leading to several social consequences. Such problems are handled through both avoidance behavior and adaptations. While adaptations facilitate interactions, they come at the cost of feeling a burden to others or not fully appreciating an event (e.g., a shared meal). Social support is of great importance, ranging from minor practical assistance, such as a friend checking if the milk is sour, to the profound emotional relief felt from empathic treatment and recognition that the problems are real. Here, healthcare professionals can play a vital role, even in the (perceived) absence of clinical effectiveness of the treatment. The experiences expressed are partially in line with other manifestations of Long COVID and with chemosensory dysfunctions due to other illnesses, but only partially, since this is a patient group with needs and experiences that are unique, in that sociality is so strongly affected solely by disruptions in sensory abilities.</p>","PeriodicalId":48437,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Health Research","volume":" ","pages":"726-739"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12056266/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142401639","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":"Shadowing Stroke Patients to Explore the Rehabilitation Built Environment: Approach, Insights, and Lessons Learned.","authors":"Maja Kevdzija","doi":"10.1177/10497323241236305","DOIUrl":"10.1177/10497323241236305","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Shadowing is a research method that combines observing events and short on-the-go interviews to investigate people's roles and behaviours in various settings. Even though it is not a widely used method in architectural research, it can be adapted to focus on the interaction of individuals with the built environment. This is especially important in healthcare environments, where people are vulnerable and more dependent on their surroundings. In this article, I reflect on the experience of adapting and using the shadowing method to explore stroke inpatients' interactions with the built environment during their recovery in rehabilitation centres. This research study was the first to employ shadowing in the stroke patient population on such a large scale. One day (12 consecutive hours) was spent with each of the 70 participating stroke inpatients, recording their interactions with the built environment in different forms - on the floor plans, as narrative descriptions, creating sketches of situations and noting down patients' remarks. This method was useful in capturing the built environment's role in patients' daily experiences in rehabilitation centres. Research in healthcare facilities includes various challenges, and close contact with the patient population of older adults with stroke introduces numerous unexpected events and ethical dilemmas in the field. At the same time, this method provides research insights that would otherwise be unobtainable. Researchers are given practical information and recommendations on how to prepare for using shadowing for architectural research and what to expect in the field.</p>","PeriodicalId":48437,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Health Research","volume":" ","pages":"699-713"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12056262/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140319535","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":"Lived Experiences of Learning to Use a Long Cane: The Importance of Integrating Perceptual, Existential, and Social Dimensions for Active Cane Use.","authors":"Inger C Berndtsson","doi":"10.1177/10497323241277111","DOIUrl":"10.1177/10497323241277111","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>How do people who are blind or visually impaired experience learning to use a long cane? This question is of paramount importance for planning and delivering rehabilitation programs and orientation and mobility (O&M) training. Until now, research into learning to use a long cane has focused primarily on technical and professional aspects, paying little attention to the lived experience of the learning activities that are offered in the field of O&M. This extensive qualitative study adopts a lifeworld phenomenological approach and sets out to examine the pedagogical processes within rehabilitation, focusing on the learning experiences of people with impaired vision. The methods used included participant observation during O&M training sessions and recurrent narrative interviews with three research subjects. The results show that learning to use the long cane has perceptual, existential, and social dimensions which are intertwined processes that relate to mind and body, body-world relations, and human existence and society. Learning to use a long cane has in this study been interpreted as embedded with cultural meaning about disability. Further, the habitual use of the cane promotes adaptation to visual impairment but also to build new body-world relations. The lifeworld theory and its methodology have contributed to theoretical evidence and rigor throughout. The results bring new interpretations to the field of O&M and are a relevant basis and valuable for pedagogical rehabilitation as it highlights the importance of taking the individual's lifeworld and needs into consideration when teaching someone how to use a long cane.</p>","PeriodicalId":48437,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Health Research","volume":" ","pages":"714-725"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12056267/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142401638","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}
Selina Müller, Jonas Wachinger, Lirui Jiao, Till Bärnighausen, Simiao Chen, Shannon A McMahon
{"title":"\"Not Only a Matter of Personal Interest\"-Vaccination Narratives and the Model of Moral Motives in China and Germany.","authors":"Selina Müller, Jonas Wachinger, Lirui Jiao, Till Bärnighausen, Simiao Chen, Shannon A McMahon","doi":"10.1177/10497323241277107","DOIUrl":"10.1177/10497323241277107","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Understanding vaccination decision-making processes is vital for guiding vaccine promotion within pandemic contexts and for routine immunization efforts. Vaccine-related attitudes influencing individual decision-making can be affected by broader cultural and normative contexts. We conducted 73 qualitative interviews with adults in China (<i>n</i> = 40) and Germany (<i>n</i> = 33) between December 2020 and April 2021 to understand COVID-19 vaccination intentions and preferences, and we analyzed transcripts using a five-step framework approach. During early analysis, we identified moral considerations in line with the tenets of the Model of Moral Motives (MMM) as a recurrent theme in the data. The MMM guided further analysis steps, particularly with its distinction between motives that are proscriptive (focus on avoiding harm by inhibiting \"bad\" behavior) and prescriptive (focus on actively seeking positive outcomes). Proscriptive vaccination arguments that compelled vaccination in our data included avoiding negative attention, being a law-abiding citizen, preventing harm to others, and protecting one's country. Prescriptive motives focused on self-efficacious behavior such as protecting the health of oneself and others via widespread but voluntary vaccination, prioritizing elderly and predisposed individuals for vaccination, and favoring a fair and equitable distribution of vaccines at the global level. In the interviews in China, both lines of arguments emerged, with a general tendency toward more proscriptive reasoning; interviews conducted in Germany tended to reflect more prescriptive motives. We encourage research and vaccine promotion practice to reflect moral considerations when aiming to understand public health preventive behavior and when developing tailored health promotion campaigns.</p>","PeriodicalId":48437,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Health Research","volume":" ","pages":"740-754"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12056270/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142478022","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}
Alasdair Vance, Janet McGaw, Jo Winther, Sandra Eades
{"title":"Indigenous Spirituality, Health, and Well-Being in the Young: Yarns With the Victorian Aboriginal Community.","authors":"Alasdair Vance, Janet McGaw, Jo Winther, Sandra Eades","doi":"10.1177/10497323241274706","DOIUrl":"10.1177/10497323241274706","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The extant literature has scant detail about everyday spiritual practices that aid Indigenous young people. This paper systematically explores Indigenous Spirituality, health, and well-being through Elder-governed <i>yarns</i> conducted via Zoom with 44 Aboriginal Elders, Healers, and Senior and Junior people involved in health and well-being of the Victorian Aboriginal community. These <i>yarns</i> were analyzed through an innovative, constructivist, multi-perspectival discursive grounded theory method. Key findings are that Spirituality is crucial for health and well-being, leading to a clear mind and at-peace \"center\" in a person. Aboriginal spiritual practices reflect the unique characteristics and essential rhythms of <i>Country</i>. Spiritual development is incremental and increases the obligations and responsibilities a person has to community and <i>Country</i> and leads to increased caring for <i>Country</i>. This paper provides rich detail about practical spiritual techniques to aid Indigenous young people and their kinship networks. It has the potential to shape future policy.</p>","PeriodicalId":48437,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Health Research","volume":" ","pages":"768-778"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12056261/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142478028","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":"Collaborative Autoethnography of Cancer Patients' Dynamic Sense of Agency.","authors":"Eeva Aromaa, Päivi Eriksson, Satu Koskinen","doi":"10.1177/10497323241285959","DOIUrl":"10.1177/10497323241285959","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Through collaborative autoethnography, we studied shifts in cancer patients' sense of agency and the meaning of cancer during the diagnostic and treatment phases. This article contributes to the illness management literature by adopting sense of agency perspective that provides new understanding of retrospective interpretation of cancer patients' agency. The authors' experiences of receiving cancer diagnoses and a related, collectively written story illustrate how relational and contextual elements facilitate rapid shifts in cancer patients' sense of agency and illness management. The findings illustrate shifts in the sense of agency as a collaborative and reflexive process between cognitive, emotional, and bodily constraints and adjustments. We demonstrate how shifts in patients' sense of agency and respective changes in meanings attached to cancer were shaped by near ones, healthcare actors, and other cancer patients, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic and the fear of military conflict due to Finland neighbor Russia's war on Ukraine. Furthermore, the study illustrates how shifts in sense of agency shape and are shaped by changes in the understanding of cancer as either a secondary issue, ambiguous stranger, travel companion, or enemy.</p>","PeriodicalId":48437,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Health Research","volume":" ","pages":"793-806"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12056268/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142478026","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":"\"Accepting the Poem of Destiny\": Identity Reconstruction in a Chinese Online Depression Community.","authors":"Xin Li, Kaibin Xu","doi":"10.1177/10497323241274723","DOIUrl":"10.1177/10497323241274723","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>As online health communities become important platforms for people with depression to express themselves, digital narratives provide a lens for understanding their identity work. Drawing on the communication theory of identity (CTI), this article explored the members' identity reconstruction by analyzing their narratives posted in a Chinese online depression community. The four levels of identities constructed by the members include \"laggard\" and \"pioneer\" at the personal layer, \"idler\" and \"fighter\" at the enacted level, \"stress-maker\" and \"escaper\" at the relational layer, and support providers and receivers at the communal layer. These identities at different levels usually interact in the narratives, showing that identity gaps exist among the members. The study shows that the members' autobiographical accounts of depression entail multiplicities and ambivalences, denying the dominant and stigmatizing representation of it by common sense and the media as a reductionist downward and one-way experience that is valueless and offers no possibility for personal growth. The findings regarding the communal level of identity show that narratives can help the narrators to create bonds of solidarity of an experience that is often marginalized.</p>","PeriodicalId":48437,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Health Research","volume":" ","pages":"755-767"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142478021","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":"\"You're Just Stuck in a Hole, Really\": Mechanisms of Structural Racism Through Migrant Agricultural Worker Housing in Canada.","authors":"C Susana Caxaj, Anelyse Weiler","doi":"10.1177/10497323241285768","DOIUrl":"10.1177/10497323241285768","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Worldwide, migrant agricultural workers face poor housing conditions and related health challenges. A growing body of research has documented the substandard housing often occupied by this largely racialized population. Yet limited health research has examined mechanisms of structural racism that determine this group's poor housing and health. Drawing on interviews with 151 migrant farmworkers in Ontario and British Columbia, Canada, we documented the housing experiences faced by migrant agricultural workers and examined the role of structural racism in determining housing and health inequities. Our analysis identified four overlapping mechanisms by which migrants' housing and health were determined by structural racism: (1) scarcity, (2) segregation, (3) sacrifice, and (4) stagnation. These mechanisms both reinforced and normalized housing hardships, making it difficult for migrants to escape unsafe or inadequate housing. Our findings point to the need for immediate action to improve housing conditions for this population and to interrogate the racist design that keeps migrant workers at the margins of society.</p>","PeriodicalId":48437,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Health Research","volume":" ","pages":"807-823"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12056269/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142478024","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}