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Family Practice Vol. 16, No. 5, 515-521
© Oxford University Press 1999

The impact of patients' influence on recovery in a group of patients with dyspepsia

Berit Nilsson and Göran Westman

Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Family Medicine, Umeå University, SE-901 85 UMEÅ, Sweden.

Background. The approach to health and disease can either be salutogenic (origins of health) or pathogenic (disease causing), which thus makes recovery a concept featuring several different angles. Antonovsky, with his concept of salutogenesis, tried to reach a more complete understanding of its favourable effects on health.

Objective. We aimed to investigate, understand and learn from the experiences of a small group of patients about factors leading to recovery.

Methods.A qualitative approach was used to explore patient experiences. One semi-structured interview was conducted by one of the authors (BN) with each of the 18 patients suffering from dyspepsia who had been investigated by means of gastroscopy at a university hospital clinic 12–15 years previously. The interviews were recorded either in written notes composed directly after the interviews or tape-recorded and subsequently transcribed. A modified form of grounded theory according to Strauss-Corbin was used to analyse the data.

Results. A pattern featuring five types of patients' influence on their lives was discerned, ranging from "a sense of no possibility of having an influence on existence/life" to "having influence". Strategies used by patients to maintain health could be categorized into four types: "extremists", "oscillators", "leapers" and "full-scalers".

Conclusions.Listening to patients who had experiences with dyspepsia brought patient influence on their own lives and on the care process into focus. We consider that there might be a link between patients having an influence on their lives and their being healthy today. In clinical practice, patient recovery and health promotion could gain from a perspective where patient influence is treated with esteem and emphasized in the consultation. In the future, research design could benefit from taking patient influence on the care process into consideration. However, no causal linkage between patient influence and patient outcome was established in this study. In order to do that, studies with quantitative design should be undertaken in the future.

Keywords. Dyspepsia, health, patient influence, recovery.


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