The Experiences of Women who Live with Pelvic Floor Disorders: A Qualitative Study

BACKGROUND: Pelvic floor disorders (PFDs) are common and complicated problems that occur in women with different ages and cultural backgrounds and affect various dimensions of their life. Because of the dearth of information about how the Iranian women manage these disorders, this study was conducted to explore the experiences of women who live with PFDs. METHODS: This qualitative study was conducted between 2018 -2019 on women who referred to the clinics of Mashhad educational hospitals . 25 deep and semi-structured interview with 22 patients with PFDs was done. They were recruited through a purposive sampling method among women with diagnosis of PFDs. Data were analyzed using conventional content analysis adopted by Graneheim and Lundman and organized using the MAXQDA software (Ver.10). RESULTS: The analysis of the data led to the emergence of a theme of “Acceptance and Tolerance”, including four categories: “Trying to adopt sexual conflicts”, “ Concealing the disease”, “Trying to modify the lifestyle”, and “Controlling negative emotions”, and 15 sub-categories. CONCLUSION: This study provides an insight into self-management strategies for different aspects of challenges faced by women with PFDs.They try to resolve, conceal, modify, and control some issues to accept and tolerate their disease. By identifying self-management strategies, care providers can design and implement counseling, educating and supporting interventions, and also a program through which the patients help and guide each other.