This week’s seminar focused on the illness experience guided by a paper by kathy charmaz and review of interviews done with people living with a chronic illness (rheumatoid arthritis).
Some isues were raised by respondents and the illness experience was identified as psychosocial with denial being the initial phase and the other stages after being informed about the diagnosis as general to all. Altering life style after diagnosis was seen to affect the patient’s perception of themselves and dealing with these changes had a significant psychological effect on life itself.
Chronic illness was also thought to lead to self discovery further affecting self esteem positively or otherwise and thus the quality of life.
An important issue raised was how the chronically ill were treated with an acute illness framework and how health professional can further enhance restriction in life in general due to lack of adequate information available to the patient thus feeding the patient’s fear of the illness.
The impact of chronic illness on sexual life was also highlighted as a very important contributory factor to developing low self esteem experienced by people living with chronic illness. Other major issues raised include social isolation and the effect of being a burden on carers. The role of family was also seen as very important in social integration which helps to prevent social isolation.
The illness narative has been seen to help improve social interaction learning from a collective experience.
