Women's experiences of living with chronic pain: A qualitative meta‐synthesis

There is an increased research focus on the menopause transition. However, this literature is still largely focused on quantitatively surveying women about their menopause symptoms, with less qualitative focus on women's lived experiences of menopause. This includes the impact of menopause on women's daily lives, how they seek information and support, and their perceptions of societal attitudes towards menopause. This article presents a narrative review of qualitative studies (2014-24) conducted with women aged 45-60 years that focused on the lived experience of menopause. Four themes were constructed from 12 papers using reflexive thematic analysis. Menopause was considered a natural and normal part of the ageing process, with many positives, including new beginnings and elevating women's status as elders in their communities. However, some women found menopause challenging in the context of other factors occurring in midlife. This included a lack of access to information about their symptoms and what they were experiencing. Specific challenges related to mood changes also impacted women's identity and social connections with others. Women's negative experiences were influenced by stigma and gendered social stereotypes about ageing. Improving the theoretical and methodological quality and coherence of qualitative research, with independent funding for these studies, would strengthen the literature relating to women's lived experience of menopause. As well as the individual and social determinants of women's experiences, it is important that research also considers the impact of the framing of menopause, and how economic, commercial, and political determinants may intersect to influence women's experiences of the menopause transition.

It has been asserted that women's travel narratives are fundamentally different from those of men. The differential access of women to the dominant imperial position produced a gaze on the Orient that registered differences in less pejorative ways. However, the analysis of the intersection of gender, class, nation, and race discourses problematizes this view, and gives evidence that in women's narratives and life experiences one can find sites of resistance to colonialism as well as sites of complicity, depending on the individual women's positioning in this intersection. But even if women's narratives and life experiences do not necessarily deviate from the predominant Orientalist discourse, their texts are nevertheless specifically gendered. In this paper I study two women travelers, Isabelle Eberhardt (1877 – 1904) and Gertrude Bell (1868 – 1926). Eberhardt, born in Geneva (although with a Russian background), traveled to Tunisia and Algeria, wrote in French, and became a legendary figure in France. Gertrude Bell, born in County Durham (United Kingdom), spent most of her adult life in the Middle East and, at the service of the British Government, played a major role in the creation of its modern political map (in particular in Iraq). The study and comparison of these two women shed light on the complexity of attitudes towards colonialism that can result from a combined analysis of gender, class, nation, and race. Eberhardt was frequently torn between identifying with her race and class or with her gender, and among French colonial officers held a reputation of being an enemy of France as well as profoundly Algerianized; but, in the end, she gradually reached a compromised position in relation to France's colonial policies in the Sahara. In contrast, Bell was a traveler and a scholar who used her knowledge and her travels to promote the cause of the British Empire. But although she was unambiguously imperial in her outlook, she also managed to achieve a personal closeness with many Arabs and was a champion of their history and culture.

The paper focuses on the South African Higher Education environment, engaging with men in leadership and their views on areas that have been identified as challenging in women's lived experiences and the advancement of women towards leadership. Men still dominate positions of leadership and as such, hold positional power and influence in transformation towards a more equitable and diverse leadership profile. Research in this area focuses predominantly on the voices of women, yet there is recognition that men should also exercise agency in this regard. Set within a framework of social justice, critical and social realism, the research considers whether men understand women's lived experiences and challenges of institutional culture, often described in gendered terms. It considers their perceptions of women as leaders, inclusive of their notions of leadership. It is an attempt to grapple with women's perpetual challenges in the Higher Education milieu and the globally persistent underlying barriers to women's advancement. A qualitative approach was adopted and six men in leadership positions were interviewed. Responses to open-ended questions, based on areas highlighted in the literature, were analysed using critical discourse analysis. The findings revealed that though men in leadership appeared to understand the challenges experienced by women, the deeper embedded (real) levels of patriarchy and institutional culture and the impact on women's lived experiences were not fully appreciated. The paper concludes that men's advocacy and agency, though not conclusively so, can be major game-changers in institutional culture and patriarchal practices. The appearance of a perpetual cycle of cultural and structural barriers, and a predominance of research on women's experiences of this cycle, led the researcher to engage with men in leadership to ascertain whether they recognise and comprehend this cycle and whether they exercise agency and advocacy in challenging the status quo.

Women who have been through gynaecological cancer, experience challenges on many levels after diagnosis and treatment. Studies show that, in order to help women in their rehabilitation process, there is a need for holistic care and follow-up. The aim of this qualitative study is to provide insight into women's own lived experiences of participating in an education and counselling group intervention after curative treatment for gynaecological cancer. A qualitative study based on data from three focus groups with 17 women who had participated in a nurse-led education and counselling group intervention after treatment for gynaecological cancer. The main findings show that participation in the rehabilitation group was described as a special community of mutual understanding and belonging. Education and the sharing of knowledge provided a clearer vocabulary for, and understanding of, the women's own lived experiences. The presence of dedicated and professional care workers was reported to be essential for the outcome of the group intervention. Attending a nurse-led education and counselling group intervention had a positive impact on various aspects of the women's lived experiences. The programme also provided professionals with important insights into the patients' views and feelings regarding cancer treatment, trajectories and rehabilitation. This knowledge has already proven itself useful in clinical practice for improving staff communication skills and psycho-social support related to gynaecological cancer care.

The often-cited finding that is a problem particularly afflicting women is one that mainstream theoretical approaches have been unable to explain satisfactorily. Such theories have been critiqued as inherently dualist and reductionist and as employing concepts that are implicitly androcentric. Mainstream theories promote a view of depression as a form of individual disorder or psychopathology, capable of being understood without regard to the broader sociocultural context. Neglected within mainstream theory and research on depression are social-structural and discursive conditions that regulate women's lives and shape their experiences. Research informed by feminist standpoint and social constructionist epistemological perspectives provides one avenue for offsetting the limitations of mainstream approaches. At this juncture, forms of inquiry drawing on qualitative methodologies offer more useful, and potentially more emancipatory, strategies for understanding depression in women than mainstream approaches, because they can more fully acknowledge the lived experiences of women.In this article, I analyze limitations of the currently dominant, or mainstream, approaches to understanding and explaining in women. (f.1) Based on this analysis, I argue for the need to develop alternative theoretical and methodological perspectives. The limitations of mainstream approaches become apparent when the assumptions implicit in these approaches are considered from feminist standpoint and social constructionist perspectives. Within clinical psychology and adjacent fields, much research, and the practice it informs, is grounded in mainstream frameworks. When depression is conceptualized within mainstream frameworks, the accounts produced serve to medicalize and pathologize both women's bodies and women's experiences. From a feminist perspective, such approaches are viewed as lacking in emancipatory potential, because they do not share a feminist concern with women's empowerment and are more likely to collude with, than pose challenges to, oppressive conditions in women's lives. Not only are mainstream approaches likely to disempower depressed women, they also disempower women in general, because they promote androcentric, homogenized, decontextualized, reductionistic, and dualistic ways of understanding women's lived experiences and embodied lives.WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT DEPRESSION IN WOMEN?A short answer to this question is: not very much. In mainstream research on depression, gender is either ignored entirely or addressed only in terms of a female/male dichotomy, defined by individual of assignment. In the first case, research is conducted as though participants are interchangeable without regard to gender, on the assumption that theories of depression apply equally well to both females and males. In the second case, individual research participants are categorized as either female or male, and gender is addressed in this limited way by testing for sex in depression. Attention then focuses on whether differences are present between males and females in the rate or severity of depression (usually defined, respectively, as presence of diagnosable depressive disorder or level of self-reported depressive symptoms). And a consistent finding has been that rates or levels of depression are higher among women than men (cf. Bebbington, 1996; McGrath, Keita, Strickland, & Russo, 1990; Nolen-Hoeksema, 1990; Weissman et al., 1993).(f.2)Among mainstream depression researchers, there is also a consensus that reported evidence of differences in rates or levels of depression cannot be explained (or explained away) as merely the product of measurement or other methodological artifacts. Such evidence of differences in rates or levels of depression between women and men is now generally interpreted as reflecting a true difference and attention has shifted to the problem of accounting for the preponderance of women among the depressed. …

Theology Outside the Clinic Autumn Reinhardt‐Simpson Introduction The majority of a woman's life will be spent worried about either getting pregnant or not getting pregnant. For those that choose motherhood, even more time is spent worrying about poverty, health care, education, racism, and a whole host of other concerns related to her reproductive and family life in some way. Reproduction and family care is the primary focus of a woman's life for the simple reason that she exists in a world that is not framed to understand her biological, emotional, and social realities. Where society and religious institutions have not stepped up to include her experience as a primary focus of concern, she must instead focus her own energy on framing her life around those biological and social realities. Since the beginning of time, women have had every other reality of their lives made subject to her biology. For instance, a woman's career trajectory must take into account the possibility that she may become pregnant and decide to have children. Apart from the time she must be off to recover, the reality of our capitalist work structure and gendered parenting expectations practically insist that she will need additional time off to care for sick family or to stay at home for a period while her children are young. Women are, in fact, expected to take on the “second shift” as a matter of accepted fact. The power women's biology has to either liberate her or to circumscribe her life can mean the difference between being a full participant in her own life and becoming a footnote in the lives of others. Along with the work world, society, and other areas, theology has often failed to take into account the varied lives of women. While the twentieth century saw an explosion in feminist theology and biblical interpretation, theology often still failed to address the single, overriding concern of every single woman who is physically capable of becoming pregnant—the power of reproduction to shape her life in a way that is different from men. There is an incredible amount of work now being done to rectify the situation, but we still see many more theological defenses of women's subjection to biology than we do liberating theologies of reproductive justice. Those theological defenses of women's reproductive rights that do exist tend to focus on statistics, abstractions, and apology, as though women should be allowed to guide their reproductive lives simply because it is expedient for everyone else. Theologically, women's experiences have been written about as a subset to the “normal” and “standard” spiritual life, which is to say, that of men. Feminist theology is seen as a kind of theology, not as theology itself. Any theology that sees, either implicitly or explicitly, the experience of men as the default, is a theology that cannot speak to all of humanity. It's my hope that this short paper, with its focus on women's lived experiences and not on simple academic abstractions, will go some small way to beginning the work of a woman‐centered theology of reproductive rights/justice. I have structured this essay in sections dealing with theologically based concepts I have witnessed outside the clinic as I escorted patients past protesters. These include the theologies at work in protesters and clinic workers. I have provided what I believe are sound theological arguments that speak to the urgency of recognizing reproductive justice and especially non‐coercion in childbearing as a theological concern for women and the health of the entire church of which they are a vital part. Reproductive justice is an incredibly large topic that encompasses a wide variety of issues and concerns connected to women's ability to procreate. Because the subject is such a large one, I focus mostly in this paper on the right of women to control their fertility through abortion. I frame my arguments through the lens of my experience working with women at an abortion clinic in Richmond, Virginia from 2010 to 2015. However, it is important that readers understand the totality of reproductive justice so that we can set the arguments within their proper framework...

女性主義倫理與香港的墮胎問題

ObjectivesThere is little consensus regarding the burden of pain in the UK. The purpose of this review was to synthesise existing data on the prevalence of various chronic pain phenotypes...

Increasing maternal obesity trends and accompanying risks have led to the development of guidelines internationally. However, the evidence-base is poor for effective intervention, and there is a lack of representation from the perspective of obese pregnant women in guidelines. Women's engagement with weight management support services is low. To explore obese pregnant women's experiences to better understand factors which need to be considered when developing services that women will find acceptable and utilize. Obese women referred to an antenatal dietetic service in the Northeast of England, UK. Low-structured depth-interviews allowed women to freely discuss their own experiences. Discussion prompts were included; however, issues that women raised were explored thoroughly. Women summarized what they considered most important to ensure the analyses placed appropriate emphasis on factors women perceived as important. Thematic analysis identified common themes. Saturation was confirmed after 15 interviews. Key issues included: women's weight; families; experience of negativity; and priorities and desired outcomes. These combined represented women's perspectives of issues which they considered important and integral to their lived experience of being obese and pregnant. The theme incorporates women's pregnancy-related experiences, as well as life experiences which contributed to how they felt about their weight during pregnancy. There are strong associations with women's lived experiences and engagement with antenatal weight management services. Incorporating women's perspectives in the development of these services could encourage engagement by focussing on women's priorities and motivations, while taking into consideration their socially related experiences in addition to their clinical health needs.

Post-partum rectus diastasis, or the separation of the abdominal muscles after pregnancy, occurs in conjunction with physical symptoms and impaired quality of life. In Australia, health funding for surgery to treat diastasis was ceased in 2016, but reinstated in mid-2022, providing a unique context from which women's experiences of this condition can be analysed. The objective is to examine the experiences of Australian women with post-partum rectus diastasis. This is an interview-style study with qualitative content analysis. Women diagnosed with rectus diastasis were recruited to complete a baseline questionnaire (n = 45). Twenty-three responded to invitation for one-on-one interview via Zoom® between November 2021 and May 2022. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analysed using qualitative content analysis to identify key themes. Eighteen women had undergone caesarean section and eight had twins. Thirteen had private health insurance. Women were most often diagnosed by a physiotherapist (n = 10). Key themes identified included changed physical appearance and function; issues with self-esteem and intimacy; barriers to treatment; lack of recognition as a medical condition; and overall frustration. The impact of rectus diastasis extended beyond physical and psychological symptoms to affect women's social functioning, child rearing, and return to work. There was a complex interaction between healthcare providers' knowledge of rectus the removal of funding for surgical treatment, and limitations of conservative therapy, with women's lived experiences and symptoms. The lack of an established medical definition also influenced the experiences of these women and their engagement with treatment. This study contextualizes women's experience of post-partum rectus diastasis with respect to the unique landscape of Australia's healthcare economy and provides evidence of women's absorption of health policy surrounding this condition. Our qualitative analysis provides critical knowledge for future quantitative studies, the results of which in combination could advance the definition of rectus diastasis and inform healthcare policy surrounding treatment.

Mental health problems, especially depression, have turned into an extensive public health problem, affecting women in particular. The aim of this study was to obtain a deeper understanding of mental health phenomena through elderly women's lived experiences of mental health and depression. The phenomenological approach was chosen for collecting experience-based and person-centred descriptions from 21 women, focusing on mental health and depression. The interviews were analysed using Giorgi's phenomenological descriptive method. Mutuality in their relationships with themselves and others emerged as a major element in the women's experience of mental health and depression. When the women's existence and value were confirmed in relation to themselves and others, mental health appeared as an ascending spiral. When the women's value and self-esteem in relation to themselves and others were violated, the result was a descending spiral. Metaphorically speaking, 'mutuality' provided the 'background music' to the women's lives. Being a skilled professional psychiatric nurse means making the best use of mutuality as a creative power in the nurse-patient relationship. This means that the nurse must be aware that her/his attitude, appearance and behaviour are interpreted as a confirmation of the patient's worthiness or worthlessness.

While understanding the diversity of women's lived experiences is a key focus area in the international feminist literature on family violence, research with migrant women in Australia remains limited. This article seeks to contribute to the growing body of intersectional feminist scholarship that examines how immigration or "migration status" impacts the dynamics of migrant women's experiences of family violence. The article examines precarity in relation to migrant women's lives in Australia and focuses on the ways that their specific circumstances contribute to and are compounded by the experience of family violence. It also considers how precarity functions as a structural condition that has implications in terms of various forms or patterns of inequality that can heighten women's vulnerability to violence and undermine their efforts to ensure their safety and survival.

Patients' report on how endometriosis affects health, work, and daily life

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to determine Canadian Aboriginal women's perspectives on culturally appropriate HIV counseling and testing. Data were collected through semistructured individual interviews with 7 Aboriginal women, and one focus group, in a western Canadian city. Four major categories were elucidated through thematic content analysis: Aboriginal women's life experiences that may influence their risk of HIV infection and their response to testing; barriers to HIV testing; guiding principles of the ideal HIV testing situation; and characteristics of culturally appropriate HIV testing. The fear of being judged by both the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities and the need for sensitivity to the historical and current context of Aboriginal women's life experiences were pervasive themes throughout the findings.

Many studies report on the incidence of chronic pain. However, deficiencies exist in prior research making it difficult to generalize results to trauma patients. This study evaluated the incidence of chronic pain in trauma patients at 4 months posttrauma and effect chronic pain has on life interference. The incidence of chronic pain was present in 79.2% of trauma patients 4 months posttrauma and a strong positive correlation (n = 80, r = 0.79, P < 0.001) existed between chronic pain severity and the effect on life interference. Chronic pain is prevalent and causes significant life interference in traumatically injured patients.