scholarly journals How to capture the individual and societal impacts of syndemics: the lived experience of COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (10) ◽  
pp. e006735
Author(s):  
Stefan Boes ◽  
Carla Sabariego ◽  
Jerome Bickenbach ◽  
Gerold Stucki
2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zsófia Demjén

This paper demonstrates how a range of linguistic methods can be harnessed in pursuit of a deeper understanding of the ‘lived experience’ of psychological disorders. It argues that such methods should be applied more in medical contexts, especially in medical humanities. Key extracts from The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath are examined, as a case study of the experience of depression. Combinations of qualitative and quantitative linguistic methods, and inter- and intra-textual comparisons are used to consider distinctive patterns in the use of metaphor, personal pronouns and (the semantics of) verbs, as well as other relevant aspects of language. Qualitative techniques provide in-depth insights, while quantitative corpus methods make the analyses more robust and ensure the breadth necessary to gain insights into the individual experience. Depression emerges as a highly complex and sometimes potentially contradictory experience for Plath, involving both a sense of apathy and inner turmoil. It involves a sense of a split self, trapped in a state that one cannot overcome, and intense self-focus, a turning in on oneself and a view of the world that is both more negative and more polarized than the norm. It is argued that a linguistic approach is useful beyond this specific case.


2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Goddard ◽  
Randolph R Myers

Actuarial risk/needs assessments exert a formidable influence over the policy and practice of youth offender intervention. Risk-prediction instruments and the programming they inspire are thought not only to link scholarship to practice, but are deemed evidence-based. However, risk-based assessments and programs display a number of troubling characteristics: they reduce the lived experience of racialized inequality into an elevated risk score; they prioritize a very limited set of hyper-individualistic interventions, at the expense of others; and they privilege narrow individual-level outcomes as proof of overall success. As currently practiced, actuarial youth justice replicates earlier interventions that ask young people to navigate structural causes of crime at the individual level, while laundering various racialized inequalities at the root of violence and criminalization. This iteration of actuarial youth justice is not inevitable, and we discuss alternatives to actuarial youth justice as currently practiced.


Author(s):  
Maryam Heydarian ◽  
Maryam Gholamzadehjefreh ◽  
Shahbazi Masoud

Aim: Dyspareunia and vaginismus are important issues in the lives of women with these disorders and have adverse, damaging consequences for the individual, the family, and the couple's intimacy. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the lived experience of women with dyspareunia and vaginismus. Methods: The method of this study was descriptive-phenomenological psychological in which nine female participants suffering from dyspareunia and vaginismus were selected through purposeful sampling and data collection was continued through semi-structured interviews until data saturation was reached. After collecting the data and transcribing them, the researcher used Giorgi’s five-step phenomenological data analysis method. Results: Analyzing data led to 12 contributing components of the lived experience of women with dyspareunia and vaginismus which included: lack of awareness, experiencing the physical symptoms of anxiety, fear, predicting pain, feeling of inadequacy and inferiority, feeling of shame, hatred of sex and of spouse, a feeling of suffering, feeling of anger, feeling of guilt, decreased emotional and sexual intimacy, and regret about marriage. Conclusion: The results of this study also enrich the previous research literature on the lived experience of dyspareunia and vaginismus. Also, the structure of the lived experience of dyspareunia and vaginismus derived from this study is widely used to develop and apply preventive and therapeutic programs for this condition and its consequences.


2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 410-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. P. Segal ◽  
S. L. Hayes

Mental health consumers/survivors developed consumer-run services (CRSs) as alternatives to disempowering professionally run services that limited participant self-determination. The objective of the CRS is to promote recovery outcomes, not to cure or prevent mental illness. Recovery outcomes pave the way to a satisfying life as defined by the individual consumer despite repetitive episodes of disorder. Recovery is a way of life, which through empowerment, hope, self-efficacy, minimisation of self-stigma, and improved social integration, may offer a path to functional improvement that may lead to a better way to manage distress and minimise the impact of illness episodes. ‘Nothing about us without us’ is the defining objective of the process activity that defines self-help. It is the giving of agency to participants. Without such process there is a real question as to whether an organisation is a legitimate CRS or simply a non-governmental organisation run by a person who claims lived experience. In considering the effectiveness of CRSs, fidelity should be defined by the extent to which the organisation's process conveys agency. Unidirectional helping often does for people what they can do for themselves, stealing agency. The consequence of the lack of fidelity in CRSs to the origins of the self-help movement has been a general finding in multisite studies of no or little difference in outcomes attributable to the consumer service. This, from the perspective of the research summarised herein, results in the mixing of programmatic efforts, some of which enhance outcomes as they are true mutual assistance programmes and some of which degrade outcomes as they are unidirectional, hierarchical, staff-directed helping efforts making false claims to providing agency. The later CRS interventions may provoke disappointment and additional failure. The indiscriminate combining of studies produces the average: no effect.


2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 517-532
Author(s):  
Bex Lewis

Social media has become a part of everyday life, including the faith lives of many. It is a space that assumes an observing gaze. Engaging with Foucauldian notions of surveillance, self-regulation, and normalisation, this paper considers what it is about social and digital culture that shapes expectations of what users can or want to do in online spaces. Drawing upon a wide range of surveillance research, it reflects upon what “surveillance” looks like within social media, especially when users understand themselves to be observed in the space. Recognising moral panics around technological development, the paper considers the development of social norms and questions how self-regulation by users presents itself within a global population. Focusing upon the spiritual formation of Christian users (disciples) in an online environment as a case study of a community of practice, the paper draws particularly upon the author’s experiences online since 1997 and material from The Big Bible Project (CODEC 2010–2015). The research demonstrates how the lived experience of the individual establishes the interconnectedness of the online and offline environments. The surveillant affordances and context collapse are liberating for some users but restricting for others in both their faith formation and the subsequent imperative to mission.


Author(s):  
Andrew Creed ◽  
Patrick Dillon

The aim of this chapter is to draw together two theoretical perspectives on the dynamics of educational change and propose a contemporary integrated framework as an analytical tool for use in education. A cultural ecological framework, which views the individual as an integral part of the environment and places significance on interaction with the environment in the context of daily work, is integrated with a cyclonic transactional framework, which emerges from recent research on online education and traverses hermeneutical, transformational mechanisms. The cyclonic transactional framework forms a bridge between abstraction and lived experience, which are both at the heart of the cultural ecological framework, and provides a mechanism through which learning relationships may be explored. The augmented and integrated framework, developed from historical and current explorations, is a tool that can assist policy development, implementation, and evaluation for both classroom and online education.


2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Barry ◽  
Lucy Knox ◽  
Jacinta M. Douglas

Background and aims: Previous research has highlighted that living in residential aged care (RAC) is associated with a range of negative outcomes for adults with acquired neurological disorders. This study sought to understand the lived experience of entering RAC for young people and their family members and characterise their needs during this process.Method: Data included 64 written and verbal submissions to the 2015 Senate Inquiry into the Adequacy of existing residential care arrangements available for young people with severe physical, mental or intellectual disabilities in Australia. In line with hermeneutic tradition, text was analysed using thematic analysis.Results: Entry to RAC was experienced as a complex process that coalesced around three key events: an unexpected health crisis, a directive that time's up and the individual is required to leave the healthcare setting, with a subsequent decision to move into RAC. This decision was made in the absence of time, knowledge of options or adequate support.Conclusions: Findings suggest that there are both immediate practice changes and longer term policy responses that can support the health and disability systems to uphold the rights of people with acquired disability to choose where and how they will live their lives.


2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (Supplement_2) ◽  
pp. S662-S662
Author(s):  
Benjamin Miller ◽  
Kathryn Carson ◽  
Sujay Pathak ◽  
Sara C Keller

Abstract Background Antibiotic resistance is a global health emergency fueled in part by non-indicated use of antibiotics. Current public education campaigns primarily focus on the risks of global antibiotic resistance or society-wide adverse impacts of antibiotic misuse. There has been little research into what messages have the greatest impact on patient requests for non-indicated antibiotics. Methods We administered a survey at a primary care clinic in August 2018. Participants rated 18 statements about potential harm from antibiotics on how that statement changed their likelihood to request antibiotics for an upper respiratory tract infection (URI) on an 11-point Likert scale. These included 8 statements about potential harm to the individual, 4 statements about potential harm to contacts of the individual, and 6 statements about resistance or the societal impact of antibiotic misuse. Before and after the survey, participants rated how likely they were to request antibiotics for a URI. Results Of 1150 adult patients in clinic over the 6 days of the survey, 250 completed the survey. Statements about potential harm to the individual decreased patient likelihood to request antibiotics more than statements about societal impacts of antibiotic misuse. (P < 0.001). Statements about potential harm to contacts of the patient also decreased patient likelihood to request antibiotics more than statements about resistance or societal impacts of antibiotic misuse (P < 0.001). Statements discussing antibiotic resistance were less likely to impact patient likelihood to request antibiotics than statements not mentioning antibiotic resistance (P < 0.001). All statements decreased patient likelihood to request antibiotics. Overall likelihood to request antibiotics decreased after the survey (from 5.3 pre- to 3.1 post-survey, P < 0.001). Conclusion Statements about how potential harm of antibiotics to the individual had a greater impact than statements about resistance or societal impact of antibiotics. Our results suggest that when dissuading patients from requesting non-indicated antibiotics, providers and public health campaigns focus on the potential harm of antibiotics to the individual patient rather than on antibiotic resistance or societal impacts. Disclosures All authors: No reported disclosures.


2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 587-612 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Bailey

Waiting is a pervasive feature of organisational life and, as such, is likely to be important for a range of individual and organisational outcomes. Although extant research has shed light on the waiting experiences of diverse groups such as those suffering from illness, waiting in detention centres or queuing, there have been no previous attempts to theorise waiting specifically from the perspective of the employee. To address this gap, we draw on theories of temporality and waiting in fields such as consumer behaviour as well as the wider social sciences to develop the notion of ‘situated waiting’ which uncovers the complexity of the lived experience of waiting from the perspective of the employee. This experience is associated with factors at the level of the individual, the wait itself, and the broader waiting context. We outline the implications for future research on this hitherto hidden domain of the employee experience.


Author(s):  
Rochelle Fogelgarn

Teacher educators often encounter novice pre-service teachers who naively declare that their chief motivation for choosing a teacher training course is their passion for teaching children and young adults. Our challenge is to sustain that passion and transform it into effective pedagogical practice. As education is a profession with a crucially important affective dimension, preparing pre-service teachers for the rigors of daily teaching requires more than facilitating the acquisition of pedagogical technique and strategy. Heuristic inquiry is a methodological approach that affords teachers-as-researchers the means to portray the lived experience of teaching so that both pre- and in-service teachers can identify with, and learn about, the holistic experience of teaching. In contrast to other methodologies, the heuristic researcher’s own experience regarding the phenomenon informs, guides, and interacts with the lived experience of the study participants. The multidimensional, multiperspectival, and multifaceted “story” of the lived experience of teaching which emerges from a disciplined heuristic inquiry provides pre-service teachers with a window through which they can vicariously experience the joys, challenges, and risks inherent in the work of teaching. Being more deeply aware of what to expect may better prepare novice teachers to remain within the profession with their initial passion intact. As a methodological approach, heuristics involves self-inquiry and dialogue with others in order to discover the meaning, significance, and implications of pertinent human experience. Knowledge crystallizes within the researcher in consequence of sensory input, perception, transpersonal communication, belief, and judgment. The individual and composite portrayals and the creatively synthesized essence of the phenomenon that evolve from heuristic exploration coalesce to give a powerful picture of human experience. When heuristic inquiry depicts the dedicated efforts of dynamic teachers who have managed to make a real and enduring impact on their students’ learning and transformative growth, insight is likely to emerge regarding how to ensure the vibrant sustenance of inspired, effective teaching.


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