Cargando…

Body awareness in persons diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis

Living with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) poses physiological and psychological demands on a person. RA is a autoimmune disease that can cause pain, disability, and suffering. The ability to notice bodily inner sensations and stimuli (body awareness, BA) is described in the literature in ways that could...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Lööf, Helena, Johansson, Unn-Britt, Henriksson, Elisabet W., Lindblad, Staffan, Bullington, Jennifer
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Co-Action Publishing 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4216817/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25363521
http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/qhw.v9.24670
_version_ 1782342312145190912
author Lööf, Helena
Johansson, Unn-Britt
Henriksson, Elisabet W.
Lindblad, Staffan
Bullington, Jennifer
author_facet Lööf, Helena
Johansson, Unn-Britt
Henriksson, Elisabet W.
Lindblad, Staffan
Bullington, Jennifer
author_sort Lööf, Helena
collection PubMed
description Living with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) poses physiological and psychological demands on a person. RA is a autoimmune disease that can cause pain, disability, and suffering. The ability to notice bodily inner sensations and stimuli (body awareness, BA) is described in the literature in ways that could have either a positive or a negative impact on a person’s health. The concept of BA is complex and a thorough understanding is needed about what BA means from the patient’s perspective. This study was therefore conducted to acquire greater insight into this phenomenon. The study is grounded in a phenomenological life-world perspective. Eighteen narrative interviews were conducted in patients (age range 23–78 years) with RA. The interviews were analyzed using the Empirical Phenomenological Psychological method. General characteristics were found running through all 18 interviews, indicating that the disease resulted in a higher degree of negatively toned BA. BA was either a reactive process of searching or controlling after disease-related symptoms or a reactive process triggered by emotions. BA was an active process of taking an inventory of abilities. All participants had the ability to shift focus from BA to the outside world. Four typologies were identified: “A reactive process on symptoms,” “A reactive process on emotional triggers,” “An active process of taking an inventory of abilities,” and “A shifting from BA to the outside world.” In conclusion, because BA can be both positively and negatively toned, health care professionals must have a good understanding of when BA is positive and when it is negative in relation to the patient. RA had caused a higher degree of negatively toned BA. Thus, the ability to shift attention from BA to activity in the outside world could sometimes be beneficial for the patient’s general health.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-4216817
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2014
publisher Co-Action Publishing
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-42168172014-11-17 Body awareness in persons diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis Lööf, Helena Johansson, Unn-Britt Henriksson, Elisabet W. Lindblad, Staffan Bullington, Jennifer Int J Qual Stud Health Well-being Empirical Study Living with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) poses physiological and psychological demands on a person. RA is a autoimmune disease that can cause pain, disability, and suffering. The ability to notice bodily inner sensations and stimuli (body awareness, BA) is described in the literature in ways that could have either a positive or a negative impact on a person’s health. The concept of BA is complex and a thorough understanding is needed about what BA means from the patient’s perspective. This study was therefore conducted to acquire greater insight into this phenomenon. The study is grounded in a phenomenological life-world perspective. Eighteen narrative interviews were conducted in patients (age range 23–78 years) with RA. The interviews were analyzed using the Empirical Phenomenological Psychological method. General characteristics were found running through all 18 interviews, indicating that the disease resulted in a higher degree of negatively toned BA. BA was either a reactive process of searching or controlling after disease-related symptoms or a reactive process triggered by emotions. BA was an active process of taking an inventory of abilities. All participants had the ability to shift focus from BA to the outside world. Four typologies were identified: “A reactive process on symptoms,” “A reactive process on emotional triggers,” “An active process of taking an inventory of abilities,” and “A shifting from BA to the outside world.” In conclusion, because BA can be both positively and negatively toned, health care professionals must have a good understanding of when BA is positive and when it is negative in relation to the patient. RA had caused a higher degree of negatively toned BA. Thus, the ability to shift attention from BA to activity in the outside world could sometimes be beneficial for the patient’s general health. Co-Action Publishing 2014-10-31 /pmc/articles/PMC4216817/ /pubmed/25363521 http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/qhw.v9.24670 Text en © 2014 H. Lööf et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Empirical Study
Lööf, Helena
Johansson, Unn-Britt
Henriksson, Elisabet W.
Lindblad, Staffan
Bullington, Jennifer
Body awareness in persons diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis
title Body awareness in persons diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis
title_full Body awareness in persons diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis
title_fullStr Body awareness in persons diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis
title_full_unstemmed Body awareness in persons diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis
title_short Body awareness in persons diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis
title_sort body awareness in persons diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis
topic Empirical Study
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4216817/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25363521
http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/qhw.v9.24670
work_keys_str_mv AT loofhelena bodyawarenessinpersonsdiagnosedwithrheumatoidarthritis
AT johanssonunnbritt bodyawarenessinpersonsdiagnosedwithrheumatoidarthritis
AT henrikssonelisabetw bodyawarenessinpersonsdiagnosedwithrheumatoidarthritis
AT lindbladstaffan bodyawarenessinpersonsdiagnosedwithrheumatoidarthritis
AT bullingtonjennifer bodyawarenessinpersonsdiagnosedwithrheumatoidarthritis