No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Coping with Chronic Renal Failure
Abstract
This paper presents the findings of a small-scale study in which twenty renal patients on home dialysis were interviewed. The data are analysed in relation to coping strategies, coping styles and illness roles. Some implications for theories of coping, illness roles and social work are examined.
... 'Resisters' among chronic renal patients have been described as coping least well with dialysis, believing that symptoms are alleviated by acting as normally as possible and by not telling people. (Hardiker et al., 1984). Keeping busy and trying to ignore symptoms are central to this approach. ...
... There are reports of patients with heart conditions who had reduced (modified) their activities being better adjusted both before (Heller et al., 1974) and after heart surgery (Ramshaw and Stanley, 1981). That these adjustments are predicated upon monitoring one's condition is reflected in descriptions of patients who sought for greater information about the illness and its treatment in the case of cancer (Morris et al., 1977) and of chronic renal failure (Hardiker et al., 1984). As Herzlich (1973) has argued, treating illness as an occupation (which involves relinquishing something of one's old life style in order to construct a new one) first demands an acceptance by the person of the existence of the disease or condition. ...
Abstract This paper describes a method for studying individual adjustment to illness. The methodology draws upon the conceptual framework offered by Herzlich (1973) and defines four modalities of adjustment - accommodation, active-denial, secondary gain and resignation. The relevance of these modalities for understanding how people come to terms with illness is indicated with reference to a variety of studies of chronic illness describing such adjustments. The technique, which invites free responses to a series of questions, engages respondents on a number of issues which have been designated salient in the literature on illness behaviour and is intended to be used (a) to distinguish between individuals in their adaptation to their condition, and (b) to relate personal experience of illness to changing social situations and relationships. The methodology is offered as a way of describing, within a single conceptual scheme, the ways in which individuals resolve the dual demands of bodily change and of cultural constraint during chronic illness.
La question de l’expérience quotidienne de la bronchopneumopathie chronique obstructive (BPCO) se pose avec une force particulière tant elle frappe par son invisibilité, pour la société et pour l’individu, malgré sa prévalence. Notre analyse, fondée sur les récits d’expérience de 69 personnes atteintes, vise à montrer comment et pourquoi cette pathologie, pourtant à forte prévalence et invalidante, reste socialement invisible. Les sujets ne décrivent pas systématiquement une rupture dans leur parcours biographique qui entraînerait des modifications identitaires. L’expérience de la BPCO est à la fois celle d’une continuité des trajectoires individuelles et de désordres périodiquement introduits par les symptômes mais pas toujours associés à une « maladie » étiquetée comme telle. Elle se résume à des processus d’ajustement et de normalisation, ainsi qu’à des stratégies d’invisibilisation de la pathologie. Ces trois tendances donnent de nouvelles indications sur les processus de (re)définition de soi du sujet malade.
This paper presents findings from a research project in which needs-led assessments and care management were examined during the early years of implementation of the 1990 NHS and Community Care Act. The findings are analysed in relation to a model of social work processes, i.e. phases of assessment, intervention and evaluation. A purposive sample of 24 cases was used, spanning elderly, physical disability, learning disability and community mental health teams in two divisions of a 'county' social services Department. Practitioners, providers, users and carers were interviewed. The research illustrates the enduring importance of social work values, knowledge and skills in situations of rapid organizational change and policy development.
This article argues that dominant paradigms in the study of social welfare have neglected the role of creative human agency in responding differentially to threats of welfare across the lifespan. This is due to the preference for unitary categories of analysis which place vulnerable individuals into homogenous groupings and to the tendency to work with limited models of vulnerability and helpseeking. These paradigms are further characterised by a preoccupation with pathological views of health and welfare and by inadequate conceptualisations of mediating factors and coping across the life course. A new paradigm of welfare is called for, the focus of which would be on the differential nature of vulnerability and risk among individuals and their differentiated reactions to threats to welfare. Directions for empirical research within such a paradigm are outlined.
Over the last few decades there has been a revival of interest in virtue ethics, with the emphasis on the virtuous caregiver.
This paper deals with the ‘virtuous patient’, specifically the patient with End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD). We believe that
a virtue approach provides insights not available to current methods of studying coping styles and coping strategies. Data
are derived from seven semi-structured in-depth interviews. The transcripts of the interviews were subjected to an Interpretative
Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). The focus of the analysis was on ‘living well with chronic illness’. It appears that the
moral challenges faced by patients with an ESRD are manifold. When they are invited to tell the story of their illness, they
do not explicitly speak of virtues, but they often refer to moral qualities, and to attitudes that can be regarded as virtuous.
We identify several such concepts in the narratives of patients with ESRD. We conclude that the Aristotelian model of virtue
ethics is particularly descriptively (and possibly also normatively) relevant to the explanation of the life narratives and
the moral challenges of patients with an ESRD.
This paper presents findings from a research project in which needs-led assessments and care management were examined during the early years of implementation of the 1990 NHS and Community Care Act. The findings are analysed in relation to a model of social work processes, i.e. phases of assessment, intervention and evaluation. A purposive sample of 24 cases was used, spanning elderly, physical disability, learning disability and community mental health teams in two divisions of a 'county' social services department. Practitioners, providers, users and carers were interviewed. The research illustrates the enduring importance of social work values, knowledge and skills in situations of rapid organizational change and policy development.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.