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The Meaning of Living with Severe Chronic Heart Failure as Narrated by Elderly People
Author(s) -
Ekman Inger,
Ehnfors Margareta,
Norberg Astrid
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of caring sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.678
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1471-6712
pISSN - 0283-9318
DOI - 10.1111/j.1471-6712.2000.tb00573.x
Subject(s) - feeling , meaning (existential) , narrative , psychology , theme (computing) , sociology of health and illness , psychotherapist , social psychology , medicine , health care , linguistics , philosophy , computer science , economics , economic growth , operating system
The meaning of elderly patients' experiences of living with chronic heart failure was studied. Narrative interviews were analysed using a phenomenological hermeneutic approach. ‘Feeling imprisoned in illness’ and ‘feeling free despite illness’ constituted the themes. These themes were interpreted as describing variations in awareness of the relationship between the self and the body. In the theme ‘feeling imprisoned in illness’ the body's illness and disability hindered the subjects from being themselves. In the theme ‘feeling free despite illness’ the disabled body was not experienced as limiting, but rather as a part of the self. The patients' understanding of the illness must be interpreted by the caregiver, who also needs to be aware of different modes of communicating feelings about the illness.