Health maintenance, meaning, and disrupted illness trajectories in people with low back pain: a qualitative study

Sanders, Tom, Ong, Bie Nio, Roberts, Diane and Corbett, Mandy (2015) Health maintenance, meaning, and disrupted illness trajectories in people with low back pain: a qualitative study. Health Sociology Review, 24 (1). pp. 1-14. ISSN 1446-1242

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Abstract

Whilst ‘biographical disruption’ remains important for explaining how people rebuild biography following the onset of chronic illness, it does not self-evidently explain the problem of managing a fluctuating chronic condition such as non-specific low back pain. Chronic illness rarely leads to long-term improvement; the trajectory is not always linear, and sudden or gradual improvements alongside deterioration are commonly experienced. In the case of low back pain, self-management often involves utilisation of non-pharmaceutical approaches, personal resources for accommodating pain and disability, as well as managing symptoms with clinical treatments to relieve pain. Such a multifaceted approach – not only concerned with the reduction of symptoms – shifts focus beyond the ‘disease’ state and a single point of disruption, drawing attention to the use of ‘health maintenance actions’ to facilitate a proactive response to illness management. We propose this new approach as an alternative way of understanding the experience of patients with fluctuating health conditions such as low back pain.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	sociology, health maintenance, low back pain, chronic illness, qualitative
Subjects:	B900 Others in Subjects allied to Medicine
Department:	Faculties > Health and Life Sciences > Social Work, Education and Community Wellbeing
Depositing User:	Paul Burns
Date Deposited:	18 Jan 2019 16:57
Last Modified:	11 Oct 2019 14:30
URI:	http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/37665

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