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Preserving Self-Concept in the Burn Survivors: A Qualitative Study

BACKGROUND: Burn injury is a devastating experience affecting all aspects of a person's essence, including his/her identity and perception. These patients require complex cognitive efforts to redefine their identity to deal with difficult condition after burn injury and preserve self-concept. T...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Zamanzadeh, Vahid, Valizadeh, Llila, Lotfi, Mojgan, Salehi, Feridoon
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Medknow Publications & Media Pvt Ltd 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4441180/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26009672
http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/0973-1075.156492
Descripción
Sumario:BACKGROUND: Burn injury is a devastating experience affecting all aspects of a person's essence, including his/her identity and perception. These patients require complex cognitive efforts to redefine their identity to deal with difficult condition after burn injury and preserve self-concept. The experience of life after burn injury is generally a solitary one, closely related to the patients’ cultural and religious context. Therefore, this study was conducted aiming at investigating burn patients’ experiences regarding how to preserve self-concept in life after burn injury in Iran. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This qualitative study was carried out using qualitative content analysis and in-depth unstructured interviews with 17 surviving burn subjects. RESULTS: During the qualitative content analysis process, the concept of “locating” as the essence of the participants’ experience was extracted as follows: (A) self-exploration (exploring the changes in one's life), (B) others’ exploration (exploring the changes in the life of family members and the relationship between self and others), (C) position evaluation (self-position analysis), and (D) self-concept preservation. CONCLUSION: The present study has developed new understandings of mental experiences of burn patients’ self-concept by describing the concept of “self-locating”. It helps us in classifying and understanding the concepts described in comprehensive theories developed in this area. They do this by focusing on what burn patients experience for choosing self-preservation strategies and having a meaningful life. The finding can be used as a conceptual framework for palliative care program in Iran.