"Getting on with life": Women's experiences and ways of coping with depression.

Abstract

AbstractThis study explored women's experiences of and in particular how women living in rural communities understand, experience, and cope with feelings of distress unaided by professional help. Participants were 15 women living in rural areas of central New Brunswick who completed a semi-structured interview lasting, average, 75 minutes. The purpose of the interview was to explore their experiences of depression and their ways of coping with these experiences. The women's accounts were analyzed using thematic and discourse analysis methods. A central theme revealed in the analysis was that women's understanding of their experiences was interwoven with their attempts to live up to the ideals and practices of the good woman. Within this context, depressive experiences were viewed as a taken-for-granted or expected part of their everyday lives.This study involved a qualitative exploration of how women living in rural communities in the central region of New Brunswick understand, experience, and cope with their feelings of distress unaided by professional help. Although depression is reported to be one of the more common mental health problems among women in Western countries (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1990), relatively little research attention has been paid to women's accounts of their experiences with depression.The present research was conducted with women living in rural areas; available evidence suggests that such women face an increased risk of exposure to social conditions associated with vulnerability to i.e., economic instability, geographical isolation, and traditional beliefs about the roles of women (Graveline, 1990). The study focused women who have not received professional help in coping with their distress, because of evidence from epidemiological research that the majority of women whose symptom experiences would meet diagnostic criteria for depression have neither sought nor received such help (e.g., Leaf & Bruce, 1987). The study has special relevance to the New Brunswick context because 51% of the population resides in areas defined as rural (Statistics Canada, 1993).In focusing women's accounts of their experiences with depression, this study was informed by a feminist standpoint epistemological position (Harding, 1987; Smith, 1987). A feminist standpoint epistemology takes account of the relationship between women's experiences and the generation of scientific knowledge by examining how research is produced and the relationships in which it is produced. According to this epistemological position, knowledge derived in the research process begins from the standpoint of women's experiences, and also includes the subjectivity of the researcher. Thus, our backgrounds, interests, and values shaped the choice of research topic, the interviews with the women, and the analysis and discussion. As women, we were concerned with the predominance of depression among women; as individuals clinically trained in psychology, living in the Maritime region of Canada, we were concerned with the provision of mental health services to depressed women, particularly those in rural areas. As feminist researchers, we also were concerned to conduct research using methods that enabled women's experiences of depression to be explored directly, rather than pathologizing them as symptoms of a disorder.Conducting research from a feminist standpoint entails a view of knowledge as building and from women's experiences, rather than simply adding on women's voices to existing research paradigms (Harding, 1987). In the present study, rather than defining and assessing depression according to the preconceived notions of experts, participants were invited to take part in an interview to discuss how they understood, express, and cope with their depressive experiences without professional intervention. In doing so, the women's personal meanings regarding depression were articulated and their accounts were treated as a valid source of knowledge in their own right. …