“Activism Was a Survival Strategy”: Chronic Illness and the Power of Endometriosis Activism as Work

Accurate understanding of chronic illness in patients of any age is associated with less distress, less confusion, improved satisfaction with medical care, better compliance with treatment, and an improved emotional state,1 all key factors for good health-related quality of life. In patients with chronic illnesses such as diabetes mellitus and asthma, illness knowledge has been poor.2,3 Some studies suggest that children with chronic illnesses do not know more about their condition or their body than their healthy counterparts.3 Traditionally, medical professionals have entrusted the parents of children with chronic illnesses with the task of imparting knowledge about the illness to their child. This practice assumes that parents understand the illness and that they pass on their knowledge in a manner appropriate for the individual child. However, parents often do not understand and may forget what they have been told.4 Some have argued that the emotional stress associated with chronic illness retards children's development.5 Patients may understand only part of what has been communicated to them, and wrongful understanding may persist or even be amplified with time. A lack of knowledge can lead to a general sense of confusion, heightened anxiety, and a lack of control.1 In this study, we undertook a formal investigation of knowledge of chronic cardiac illness in children and their comprehension of the time line of their illness (when it started and how long it was likely to continue).

The Dawning of a New Decade

As we have discussed in Chapters one and two of this monograph, the social system is welded together by institutions of the three blocks of economic, political and legal structures. Each of these structures has its own identity for recognition and yet is connected to each other to establish the unity of the political economy as a complex self-improving and self-transformation system. The social system must be seen as an automatic control system where the automatic controllers are linked to the decision-choice system. The economic structure is the foundation of life; the political structure is the foundation of social decision-making power and; the legal structure is the foundation of the social control and stability regarding the individual and collective decision-choice behavior in the three structures. In this respect, the political structure, endowed with the decision-making power, shapes and manages all three structures for coherence, stability and systemic risk associated with the collective decision-choice system of the political economy. At the same time, it is also shaped by the interactive behaviors of the three structures as they affect the social existence. The outcomes and social mandates of the interactive behavior create the environment for rent creation and harvesting.KeywordsPolitical EconomyLegal StructureReal SectorDebt MarketNational WealthThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Purpose Many young adults living with chronic illness fear being perceived as different by their peers and excluded from social activities. This forces them to consider whether to disclose or conceal their illness. This article analyses young adults’ disclosure strategies and links them to peers’ understanding of illness. Materials and methods The explorative study is based on episodic interviews with sixty young adults living with chronic illnesses (type 1 diabetes, cancer, chronic inflammatory bowel disease or a rare disease) and thirty peers. The interviews were thematically coded. The young adults’ statements were compared to the peer perspectives on a case-by-case basis. Results We identified three groups of young adults: 1) those who are generally open with peers about their illness and its subjective meaning; 2) those who share selected health-related information’s with selected peers; 3) those who refrain from active disclosure and are unsure how they might talk about their illness when it becomes apparent. Our findings also indicate that peers differ in the sophistication of their illness perceptions and the meaning they ascribe to living with a chronic illness. Conclusion Trainings should target both young adults and peers, and should assist both sides in talking about (serious) chronic illness.

Background: In Ghana, just as in many African countries, informal care for older people is derived from a shared culture of social responsibility, reciprocity and love. With a global increase in the older population and an increase in chronic life-limiting illness among older people, there is evidence of the emerging health, social and economic needs of older people living with chronic life-limiting illness. In rural Ghana, where there is limited access to adequate support services for chronic life-limiting illness management, the effect of globalisation on social change is impacting on the ability of the Ghanaian family systems to continue the historical culture of informal care for older people. However, there is limited evidence on the experiences of older people and their family carers with respect to chronic life-limiting illness and informal care in rural Ghana. Aim: To explore the experiences of older people and their family carers on chronic life-limiting illness and informal care in rural Ghana. Method: Underpinned by the transformative paradigm, a critical ethnographic research design was used as the logical framework for data collection and analysis of results. The research was conducted during 6 months of fieldwork in the Gomoa West District, Ghana. Four groups of participants, including 15 older people, 15 family carers and 5 health care professionals from a local hospital at the Gomoa West District, and 5 health care professionals from a national Palliative Care Clinic, were purposively sampled to participate in this research. An ethnographic interview method supported with daily fieldnote notes was used for data collection. The thematic analysis procedure suggested by Braun and Clarke (2013) was used for the analysis of each data set. Subsequently, conclusions were drawn based on the themes and their interpretation. Findings: Primary analysis of the data related to older people’s subjective experiences with chronic life-limiting illness included an increasing awareness of illness in the body, limitations in meaningful activities being experienced as loss of independence and dependency relationships being experienced as vulnerable. Themes related to experiences with informal care included sustaining family and social networks for care and support, the multiple roles of being a family carer, enablers to informal care, and the burden of, and resilience and barriers to, informal care. Problems identified for transformative change: Older people’s subjective experiences with chronic life-limiting illness were negative. Some older people were faced with a nuanced decision to self-isolate from society due to an increasing awareness of illness in the body. There were experiences of challenging social identity and self-worth because of loss of independence to maintain self-care activities and to meet personal social and economic role expectations. Furthermore, existing health, social and economic structures did not ensure inclusiveness of older people living with chronic life-limiting illness; thereby, increasing vulnerability in unlimited health, social and economic needs in the rural community. Dependency on inconsistent informal care increased vulnerabilities to loneliness, isolation, abuse, neglect and uncertainties. Also, the negative perception of older people who have become dependents induced feelings of shame, failure, burden and sadness among those with problematic social identity and self-worth. There was an existential difference between traditional care and informal care specific for older people living with chronic life-limiting illness due to evidence of demographic, epidemiological and social change that worsened the burden of care on family carers. Thus, the capacity of family carers did not match the required needs of their recipients, although the ability of family carers to remain resilient sustained care. Given the extended roles family carers play and the burden of care in informal care, the lack of specific services to support family carers manage chronic life-limiting illness for their care-recipients were notable. Conclusion: Rapid social change renders older people less powerful, and makes them vulnerable to social isolation, losses and challenging social identity and self-worth. Older people living with chronic life-limiting illness have unlimited unmet health, social and economic needs; thus, dependence on an inconsistent informal care is inadequate and may expose both older people and their family carers to marginalisation. The findings highlight the significant need for effective inclusive policy that take into consideration the impact of demographic, epidemiological and social changes on older people living with chronic life-limiting illness. As a society, we should ascribe the same importance of resourcing the health and social systems to supporting family carers to provide informal care, since both support structures work hand in hand to enhance the quality of life of older people living with chronic life-limiting illness. Additionally, it is imperative that further research among this group of people consider the factors that make them marginalised.

Understandings of health, well-being, disease, and illness have changed drastically over the past century, as life expectancy has increased and as treatments for diseases once considered fatal have created an experience we call chronic illness. Prior to the twentieth century, diseases either were resolved or resulted in death, and access to medical treatment was not available to most people. In developed nations today, there has been an epidemiological shift from shorter life expectancy and high death rates from acute, infectious, parasitic diseases to longer life expectancy and ongoing, chronic illness (Lynn & Adamson, 2003). According to Lynn and Adamson (2003), most Americans live their last days in institutional settings rather than at home, and most will spend the final two years of their life coping with chronic illness or disability. Adding to that group younger people with chronic illness, the aging baby-boomer generation which has yet to develop chronic illness, and those who encounter people with chronic illness at work, school, or in social settings, makes the potential range and impact of chronic illness seem overwhelming. In addition, societal changes have occurred that have altered the way people cope with chronic illness and disability. Today’s global society and highly transient lifestyle means that many people who live with chronic illness are not in situations in which they can be cared for, assisted by, or supported by nearby family members.KeywordsMultiple SclerosisChronic IllnessSpiritual PracticeSpiritual HealingPastoral TheologyThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

The year 1976 for was the first since 1858?a total of 117 years?that the country was entirely free of Western colonial intervention. During this first year of independence, the country had to face a multifaceted challenge: that of bringing back national unity (disrupted since 1862), repairing the massive physical destruction, and overcoming the economic, cultural and social dislocations that had occurred during the Thirty-Year War (1945-75). Beyond these immediate problems, the first year of peace was also one when the foundations were laid for the country's future ideological, economic and institutional structure and for its self-assertion in international affairs. In more specific terms, 1976 was a year of hectic transitional activities which included the administrative restructuring of the country, nationwide elections for a National Assembly of the reintegrated country, a new formal name for the country (The Socialist Republic of Vietnam), and planned industrial and agricultural transformations designed to give the country a foundation for rapid economic and social development. This article attempts to review the principal aspects of Vietnam's public life during 1976. This is done while recognizing the hazards of such an undertaking. Aside from the risks inherent in instant history ? in effecting from afar a year-end review of the development of any society?there are special problems awaiting those who study contemporary Vietnam. Most of these problems are associated with the fact that Vietnam, unlike other societies, is a divided country in the of becoming one. While it is true that formally and juridically the country was reintegrated on the State plane during 1976, due to long years of partition and especially the difference in the socio-political r?gimes that governed the two regions, the reality of the existence of the two zones remains vivid. This could be observed in the postwar reconstruction efforts and in the transformations of the social, economic and institutional aspects of each zone. The North, as we shall see momentarily, greatly suffered from the war in material terms (far more than the South in many ways, due to the massive terroristic bombings); yet, it has the advantage of a stable political, social and economic structure and an experienced leadership. Thus, except for the accelerated pace of activities, for the northern zone, 1976 was a year of economic reconstruction on the basis of a firm social and political structure. It is in what was formerly Free Vietnam (south of the 17th Parallel) that a true revolutionary process was taking place, not only affecting

The year 1976 for Vietnam was the first since 1858?a total of 117 years?that the country was entirely free of Western colonial intervention. During this first year of independence, the country had to face a multifaceted challenge: that of bringing back national unity (disrupted since 1862), repairing the massive physical destruction, and overcoming the economic, cultural and social dislocations that had occurred during the Thirty-Year War (1945-75). Beyond these immediate problems, the first year of peace was also one when the foundations were laid for the country's future ideological, economic and institutional structure and for its self-assertion in international affairs. In more specific terms, 1976 was a year of hectic transitional activities which included the administrative restructuring of the country, nationwide elections for a National Assembly of the reintegrated country, a new formal name for the country ("The Socialist Republic of Vietnam"), and planned industrial and agricultural transformations designed to give the country a foundation for rapid economic and social development. This article attempts to review the principal aspects of Vietnam's public life during 1976. This is done while recognizing the hazards of such an undertaking. Aside from the risks inherent in "instant history" ? in effecting from afar a year-end review of the development process of any society?there are special problems awaiting those who study contemporary Vietnam. Most of these problems are associated with the fact that Vietnam, unlike other societies, is a divided country in the process of becoming one. While it is true that formally and juridically the country was reintegrated on the State plane during 1976, due to long years of partition and especially the difference in the socio-political r?gimes that governed the two regions, the reality of the existence of the two zones remains vivid. This could be observed in the postwar reconstruction efforts and in the transformations of the social, economic and institutional aspects of each zone. The North, as we shall see momentarily, greatly suffered from the war in material terms (far more than the South in many ways, due to the massive terroristic bombings); yet, it has the advantage of a stable political, social and economic structure and an experienced leadership. Thus, except for the accelerated pace of activities, for the northern zone, 1976 was a year of economic reconstruction on the basis of a firm social and political structure. It is in what was formerly "Free Vietnam" (south of the 17th Parallel) that a true "revolutionary process" was taking place, not only affecting

This chapter discusses the situation of migrants with disability and chronic illness and their access to health, social care and welfare support in settlement countries. The links between disability and migration have been generally neglected in the literature to date; often disability is only referred to as a potential outcome of migration because of the association between poverty, poor health, housing and employment conditions amongst migrants. This chapter provides an overview of key conceptual understandings of disability and chronic illness and the policy context. The links between migration, disability, chronic illness and care support are complex, due to shortfalls in existing knowledge and the lack of policy engagement with asylum seekers and refugees with disability and chronic illness, despite their often high care needs. The chapter pays particular attention to the situation of asylum seekers with disability or chronic illness who often have limited entitlements to health, social care and welfare support, drawing on our empirical research on disability, HIV and caring relations among asylum-seeking and refugee families in the UK. Such families face major barriers in accessing appropriate health, social care and welfare support. The unmet care needs of disabled asylum-seekers also impact on informal family carers, including children and young adults, whose substantial caring responsibilities, combined with their restricted entitlements to support, affect their wellbeing, education and transitions into adulthood.

The aim of this article is to explore how a neoliberal-oriented health care system affects the experience of people living with chronic illness. We report findings from a critical hermeneutic phenomenological research study that explored how the social, economic, and political structures impinge on the lives of people with chronic illness. Research findings of this study show how the people with chronic illness in Colombia live through the effects and pressures of globalization and corporate agendas. Results also showed how the marked social inequities caused by the unequal distribution of power, services, and goods leads to health inequities and social exclusion of research participants.

The Transition of Adolescents with Chronic Respiratory Illness to Adult Care

It is important to assess students' attitudes toward chronic illness to enhance curriculum and support interprofessional learning. A 40-item questionnaire was administered to 704 medical and nursing students. Qualitative and quantitative analyses examined their attitudes and understanding of chronic illness as well as differences between medical and nursing students. Content analysis and factor analysis indicated that entering students were more positive about chronic illness than graduates. Most underestimated its economic impact. Positive attitudes toward chronic illness were associated with taking a personal interest in patients. The attitudes of nursing students were generally similar to those of medical students, but there were differences related to patient adherence, the role of nurses in patient education, managing comorbidities, and confidentiality of electronic medical records. Entering students were more positive about chronic illness than graduates. Although medical and nursing students' attitudes were very similar, differences have implications for interprofessional education.

This paper explores the phenomenon of ethnic entrepreneurship in Greece. Greece has been transformed from an emigration to an immigration country. Since the 1990s the majority of migrant workers occupy low paid, unskilled jobs in the informal economy. However, some set up (in) formal businesses. Ethnic entrepreneurs of our study have been excluded from social and economic opportunities. By running a business they struggle against exclusion, have control over their work situation (work hours, income) and gain emotional satisfaction and self-fulfilment. As we will show, self-employment is viewed as an ‘alternative income-generating activity, a strategy towards inclusion, a feasible ‘survival strategy’ for escaping discrimination and exclusion given the lack of other employment options. In this context, entrepreneurship is not viewed as an economic behaviour structured by the existing economic and socio-political structures only, but also, as having an important subjective meaning for the self-employed migrant. We will demonstrate that ethnic businesses comprise a mosaic of formal and informal activities. Opportunities for participation of migrants in informal activities occur because of the high demand for informal provision of services and goods at competitive prices. The entrance barriers are lower than in the informal sector since one usually does not have to meet costs associated with running of a business. Although the development of ethnic business activities will be viewed as the outcome of interaction on one's legal status, economic resources, access to informal networks of support, individual aspirations and structures of opportunity (e.g. informal economy) available to migrants in the Greek case migrants are faced with structural disadvantages that push them into what is marginal self-employment. It is the peculiarities of the Greek case (large informal economy and high rates of self-employment and the multiple forms of exclusion they experience as they were in Greece) that encourage them to become ‘ survival’ entrepreneurs, to strive to create a business of their own in the ‘twilight zone’ of the Greek economy where they often carry out extra-legal activities in order to ‘survive’.

Healthy children, children with seizure disorders, and children with orthopedic conditions, ranging in age from 5 to 16 years old, were questioned about their knowledge of disease etiology, treatment, and prevention, and their health locus of control beliefs, to explore the relationship between illness-related concept attainment and perceived control over health. Children who perceived greater personal control over health demonstrated a more sophisticated conceptual understanding of disease than did children with a more external orientation. Healthy children scored significantly higher on the illness concepts questions and expressed significantly more internal health locus of control beliefs than did their peers with a chronic physical illness. Perceived control over health appears to be one factor that mediates the relationship between illness experience and understanding.

The three buildings that are important in a country where there is a strong and powerful with a strong role for the national and international arena can be first, economic structure can be the second. Political structure and the third social structure public policies are developed according to the condition of these structures. Therefore, after analyzing these structures can only be applied. Turkish economy is growing. Turkish economy is the second fastest growing economy after China. In contrast, there are positive developments in foreign trade relations. The great reduction in the foreign trade deficit and current account deficit has created an opportunity for Turkey to manage its foreign exchange supply without the IMF. In spite of the global recession, owing to the preparedness of Turkish banks and their effective management of the recession, the country is far from being afflicted with a financial crisis. Turkey which political stability in the last decade, became one of the few countries of the world, which was not much negatively affected by the global crisis. Turkey was the country with most rise in employment during the crisis in G-20 (developing countries) countries. Economic stability is at the forefront of many political stability Administration policies The difference of opinion forms unity atmosphere in the low and upper level of administration can be an effective analysis in the event that synthesizes the understanding of modern administration. One of the important socio-economic consequences of the liberalization and globalization of Turkish economy in the aftermath of2002 has been the expansion of industrialization and central-local industrialization nodes Today, in many countries, as an important indicator of the level of economic development and social development, the size of the structure employment and unemployment is discussed. one of Turkey's most important social and economic problems is unemployment. Reductions in unemployment in the last policy was applied. The mission of the AKP management is to build a movement for an economic system that prioritizes the well-being of people the new economic models which developed from economic and social structure on faced by our society. In response to this need, a New Economy structure is emerging, drawing together the people and the vision to meet the challenges of our time. The New Economics structure is a national leader’s politics within this movement, acting at the nexus of a powerful network of organizations working collaboratively toward the same goal: to rebuild our economic system on the pillars of resilience, justice and sustainability. In order to accomplish this, it must been continued to build a professional and effective nonprofit development strategy, identifying the opportunities to partner with foundation sand individual enterprising to make our vision a reality. Conscious community is increasingly aware of and supportive of new conscious ideas and programs, but there is still tremendous opportunity to engage with potential resource and build understanding of the need for an economic system that works for people welfare. The people in this position will be responsible for working closely with staff to build development strategies. Current Trends in administrative steps are: ∞ Persons and institutions tasks and responsibilities ∞ Privatization ∞ Managerial methods of public administration ∞ Common sense ∞ Participatory management (citizen-oriented) The success of administrator in the administration can be evaluated according administrator’s success and ability in the problem solving. Since, the success criterion that reveals administrator talent is ability of problem solving. The duty of administrator solves the problems appears impossible. The modernization of