Chronic back pain sufferers—striving for the sick role

Abstract

The paper draws on data from a Norwegian online discussion list for back pain sufferers and from open, in-depth interviews with Norwegian back pain sufferers. In both sources, back pain sufferers express a fear that the reality of their pain is being questioned. The paper discusses how these experiences of delegitimation can be understood as a result of the back pain sufferers’ inability to achieve the sick role. Many of these individuals strive and frequently fail to achieve clinical and social characteristics that make up appropriate sickness behaviour. A lack of proof that they are sick, including a lack of medical diagnosis, appropriate health care treatment, and visible disabilities, can lead to accusations, both felt and enacted, of malingering, hypochondria and/or mental illness. This in turn can lead to problems in the achievement and/or legitimisation of sick role benefits such as sick leave and medication. The sick role concept has been criticised as being inappropriate for describing the experiences of the chronically ill. The paper argues that the sick role concept still appears to reflect the expectations of health professionals, the public and the patient himself. The study does not support the view that chronic illness is related to a decreased dependency on the medical profession. Instead, doctors’ inability to offer chronic back pain sufferers a clear diagnosis, explanation, and/or a course of treatment or cure appears not to liberate the patient but rather prolongs his or her dependence on the doctor.