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Health as balance: illness and wellness among persons with musculoskeletal disorders
University of Gävle, Centre for Musculoskeletal Research.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-4364-467X
2006 (English)In: 5th Global Conference Making Sense Of: Health, Illness and Disease, 2006Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Musculoskeletal disorders is a condition mostly approached from an out-side perspective and with quantitative methodology. This paper presents health experiences of men with musculoskeletal problems, explored through narrative interviews and constant comparative analysis. As there is a need for further research concerning people with early musculoskeletal symptoms, we turned to persons still active in working life. Ten men working as ambulance personnel were interviewed about their health experiences.

The analysis revealed a process of striving for balance between experiences of illness and wellness. The informants’ health experiences were not a state of either wellness or illness but both, in varying degrees at different times. The process of striving for balance started when the illness experience became too intrusive, and was a process of both minimising the impact of illness by accepting and handling it and attaining and maintaining enough wellness to strike a balance. The state of balance was the experience of feeling “well enough”.

Illness was characterised by disembodiment, vulnerability, and exhaustion, as the illness experiences incorporated feelings of that the previously silent body made it self heard, of being vulnerable when suffering gets too close and of getting worn out. Those experiences were counterbalanced by wellness, which was nurtured by experiences of relatedness, usefulness, being some one, and by excitement, challenge, and freedom.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2006.
Keywords [en]
chronic illness, embodiment and disembodiment, emotion, grounded theory, health promotion and prevention, illness and wellness, musculoskeletal problems, qualitative research
National Category
Occupational Health and Environmental Health
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-2751OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hig-2751DiVA, id: diva2:119413
Conference
5th Global Conference Making Sense Of: Health, Illness and Disease, 12-15 July 2006, Oxford
Available from: 2007-10-19 Created: 2007-10-19 Last updated: 2018-06-28Bibliographically approved

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Wiitavaara, Birgitta

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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • harvard-cite-them-right
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • sv-SE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • de-DE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf