Life Satisfaction and Adaptation in Persons with Parkinson's Disease-A Qualitative Study.

Lina Rosengren,Anna Forsberg,Jan Lexell,Christina Brogårdh

doi:10.3390/ijerph18063308

Abstract

Persons with Parkinson’s disease (PD) need to adapt to their progressive disability to achieve and maintain a high degree of life satisfaction (LS), but little is known about the meaning of LS and adaptation. This study aimed to gain an in-depth understanding of the meaning of LS and adaptation in persons with PD. Open-ended in-depth interviews were performed with 13 persons diagnosed with PD, 9 women, 3 men, and one non-binary person (mean age 54 years, mean time since diagnosis 3.4 years). The interviews were analyzed using a phenomenological–hermeneutic approach. The participants were in the process of adapting to their new health situation. There were two quite distinct groups: one that adapted through acceptance and one that struggled to resist the disease and the profound impact it had on their lives. The thematic structural analysis covers eight themes illustrating the meaning of LS and adaptation, through either acceptance or resistance. Adaptation to PD involves a transitional process characterized by either acceptance or resistance, which influences a person’s LS. Acceptance makes LS possible, whereas resistance constitutes a behavioral barrier to adaptation and LS. Rehabilitation professionals need to understand this individual process to be able to support a person with PD to reach and maintain a high level of LS. Understanding the link between LS and adaptation can support rehabilitation professionals to provide targeted interventions for people with PD.

Highlights

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is one of the most common progressive neurological disorders and affects about 1% of adults over the age of 60 years [1]
We found that sense of coherence (SOC), a salutogenic concept by Antonovsky [13], was the factor most significantly associated with life satisfaction (LS)
The thematic structural analysis (Table 2) comprises eight themes illustrating the meaning of LS and adaptation as two sides of the same coin, either through accepting

Summary

Introduction

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is one of the most common progressive neurological disorders and affects about 1% of adults over the age of 60 years [1]. LS is a global term describing a person’s subjective content with life. LS is an important goal in rehabilitation for persons with life-long neurological disabilities [7] and is dependent on the degree to which expectations are fulfilled and the person’s own adaptation process [8,9]. It is important to be able to assess LS and understand how LS is associated with factors related to the disease itself and personal factors, i.e., features of the person’s life that are not part of their health condition. As LS is a highly subjective experience, it is important to understand the meaning of LS in persons with PD from their own perspective

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