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. 2015 Feb 16:10:26279.
doi: 10.3402/qhw.v10.26279. eCollection 2015.

A meta-ethnographic synthesis on phenomenographic studies of patients' experiences of chronic illness

Marta Röing  1 , Margareta Sanner  2
Affiliations

A meta-ethnographic synthesis on phenomenographic studies of patients' experiences of chronic illness

Marta Röing et al. Int J Qual Stud Health Well-being. .

Abstract

Phenomenography is a qualitative research approach developed within an educational framework, focusing on the qualitative experience of learning. It is also being used, to a lesser degree, in healthcare research. In the present study, we conducted a meta-ethnographic synthesis of phenomenographic studies on chronic illness, in order to give a broader perspective of how chronic illness can be experienced. Our aim was not to describe patients' various individual experiences of illness, but instead to identify the different ways chronic illness can be experienced by patients. Our synthesis and phenomenographic interpretation of 12 selected articles found that patients' experiences of chronic illness can be described in terms of a different lived body, a struggle with threat to identity and self-esteem, a diminished lifeworld, and a challenging reality. These experiences relate to each other in a process of recurring loops, where the different ways of experiencing continue to influence each other over time. According to these findings, the use of phenomenography as a research approach has the potential to add to the understanding of how chronic illness can be experienced. Patients may benefit from seeing that their illness can be experienced in many different ways and that it has many aspects, which then can lead to a better understanding and coping with their illness. We suggest that it may be worthwhile to expand the scope of phenomenography outside pedagogics. This presupposes a revision of the application to include a wider and more comprehensive description, for instance, of the different ways illness and healthcare phenomena can be experienced, and how these different ways are related to each other, with less focus on hierarchical relations.

Keywords: Meta-ethnography; chronic illness; meta-synthesis; phenomenography; qualitative research.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Outcome Space. The four categories of description of ways of experiencing chronic illness.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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