Narrative Data (narrative + data)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Children's Sense of Self in Relation to Clinical Processes: Portraits of Pharmaceutical Transformation

ETHOS, Issue 3 2009
Elizabeth Carpenter-Song
This article presents in-depth accounts of pharmaceutical transformation from the perspective of two children diagnosed with behavioral and emotional disorders. These portraits provide the basis for an examination of the complex interrelation between self and clinical processes. Narrative data were collected in the context of a 13-month anthropological study of the lived experiences of children diagnosed with behavioral and emotional disorders and their families living in the northeastern United States. Participating families (N=20) were from diverse racial/ethnic (African American, Euro-American, and Latino) and socioeconomic backgrounds. Psychiatric diagnoses and pharmaceuticals present tangible constraints in the lives of children that call attention to otherwise fluid and ephemeral self processes. These accounts suggest that psychiatric diagnoses and psychotropic medications present dilemmas for children's developing sense of self, revealing limitations to biopsychiatric "pharmaceutical promises." [children, self processes, subjective experience, psychiatric disorder, pharmaceuticals] [source]


Living with severe osteoarthritis while awaiting hip and knee joint replacement surgery

MUSCULOSKELETAL CARE, Issue 2 2009
Cert HSM, Gail Elizabeth Parsons MSc
Abstract Objectives:,To explore the lived experiences of patients with severe osteoarthritis (OA) of the hip or knee joint while awaiting joint replacement surgery. Methods:,An exploratory qualitative approach using phenomenology was adopted for the purpose of the study. Unstructured interviews were carried out on a sample of six patients who had been referred to the National Health Service waiting list for a primary hip or knee replacement. The participants were invited to share their experiences and concerns relating to how they were coping with end-stage OA of their hip or knee joint. Interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim. Narrative data were analysed using Giorgi's (1985) procedural steps to reveal themes which recurred in the participants' stories. Results:,Six themes emerged from the data, central to the experience of living with severe OA. They were: coping and living with pain; not being able to walk; coping with everyday activities; body image; advice and support available; and the effect of their disease upon family, friends and helpers. There were also a number of sub-themes associated with each major theme. Conclusions:,This study suggests that there is an absence of generic support, guidance and information relating to the management of symptoms of OA for individuals awaiting hip and knee replacement surgery. Patients awaiting hip and knee joint replacement surgery often have difficulty in managing their symptoms. Support in general appears to be dependent on the availability of resources in the primary care setting. Potential patients who are fortunate to know or meet someone who has undergone a similar procedure learn from the experience of exchanging information between themselves, along with coping strategies in the management of their symptoms. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


A Child's Experience of Parental Depression: Encouraging Relational Resilience in Families with Affective Illness,

FAMILY PROCESS, Issue 4 2000
Lynn Focht-Birkerts LICSW
In this article, we describe an approach that parents with affective illness can use to foster the emotional resilience of their children. Building on current research that emphasizes the need to formulate concepts of risk and resilience in terms of family or relational processes, we propose that affectively ill parents can promote resilience in their children by helping them express the affect they experience as a result of parental illness-related behavior. Risk and resilience are conceptualized in terms of a family's ability to process emotion or affect: a family's need to constrict affect is a risk factor, while the family's ability to elaborate affect encourages relational resilience. An object relations model is used to discuss the ways in which encouraging this elaboration of affect, especially negative affect, contributes to resilience in children. We describe ways in which a preventive intervention helps to increase parents' emotional responsiveness to their children. Using extensive narrative data from followup interviews with families and children, constriction and expansion of emotion in children concerning affectively ill parents are documented, by multiple interviewers, over a span of more than 5 years. Where danger threatens, there also grows the saving power. ,J.C.F. Hölderlin1Patmos [source]


An alternative approach to conceptualizing interviews in HRD research

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2007
Jia Wang
Qualitative researchers in human resource development (HRD) frequently use in-depth interviews as a research method. Yet reports from qualitative studies in HRD commonly pay little or no analytical attention to the co-construction of interview data. That is, reports of qualitative research projects often treat interviews as a transparent method of data collection, with the contents of answers to interview questions as data that mirror people's views and experiences of a "world out there." In this article, we demonstrate how an ethnomethodological approach to the reanalysis of interview data drawn from a qualitative study in HRD treats the research interview as a socially situated setting in which narrative data are co-constructed by speakers. From this perspective, it is possible to see how speakers produce unstable category descriptions and morally laden portrayals in order to support their claims. We argue that this type of analysis is useful for three reasons: (1) it provides a way to investigate instances in which interview accounts may prove analytically problematic; (2) it makes evident how interview data are produced by illuminating the conversational resources used by both researcher and participant to co-construct descriptions; and (3) it provides a new analytical approach for HRD researchers, who have until now relied primarily on thematic representations of findings derived from inductive analyses of interview data. By using this approach to analyze or reanalyze interview data, researchers may gain further insight into the research topic and the interaction that produced the interview data in a particular socially situated setting. This approach reveals the practical reasoning, identities, and moral assumptions demonstrated in talk by speakers. Such analysis, we argue, assists in HRD theory building in that it contributes to complex interpretations of data that respond to new and different questions, including methodological questions. [source]


Enhancing Delphi research: methods and results

JOURNAL OF ADVANCED NURSING, Issue 5 2004
Holly Powell Kennedy PhD CNM FACNM
Background., The Delphi method provides an opportunity for experts (panelists) to communicate their opinions and knowledge anonymously about a complex problem, to see how their evaluation of the issue aligns with others, and to change their opinions, if desired, after reconsideration of the findings of the group's work. Delphi studies have the potential to provide valuable information, yet few researchers have taken further steps to support or refine their findings. Without this step there is a potential threat to the applicability, or external validity, of the results. Aims., The purpose of this article is to present an argument for further inquiry to enhance and support Delphi findings, and specific approaches to this will be considered. Methods., Methods to enhance, expand, or refine Delphi study findings are described. Mixed method design within a Delphi study on midwifery practice is described, and a follow-up narrative study to examine the findings is presented. Findings., Selected results from the follow up narrative study are presented to convey how the narrative data clarified the Delphi findings. Together, the studies provide a more robust depiction of midwifery practice, process, and outcomes. Although there were similarities to the dimensions identified previously, there was a more dynamic focus and explanation of the interaction between the midwife, the woman who had received midwifery care, and the health care system. Study limitations., Lack of diversity in the sample and the midwives' familiarity with the author's past research represent a potential threat to the findings. Prolonged interviews and multiple narratives were gathered in an effort to control for this. Conclusion., Delphi studies are research exercises conducted by a panel of experts. Designing studies to further enhance, clarify, or refine their findings from the context of practice holds promise for their ability to influence clinical care. [source]


Women of courage: Leadership experiences of female Nigerian immigrants in Texas

JOURNAL OF LEADERSHIP STUDIES, Issue 3 2009
Gladys Ifeyinwa Nwabah
A phenomenological hermeneutical research design served to explore the immigration and leadership experiences of 22 female Nigerian immigrants in Texas through analysis and interpretation of narrative data from one-on-one interviews and focus group interviews. The findings suggest that the process of adapting to American society and the work environment is not easy for female Nigerian immigrants. They must assimilate into American work culture and work harder to access leadership opportunities, despite their belief that equal skills should mean equal opportunity. Leadership experiences in America and Nigeria differ. Nigerian women's accents may generate negative reactions from native-born workers, and immigrant leaders may experience differential treatment. Adjustment to the host country and leadership success for Nigerian immigrant women in the United States depends on strong family support and networking. [source]


La Tecnología y Las Monjitas:

MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2009
Constellations of Authoritative Knowledge at a Religious Birthing Center in South Texas
In this article, I contrast conceptualizations of authoritative knowledge in pregnancy and birth between U.S. midwives and their Mexican immigrant clients at a religious birthing center in south Texas. Although the two groups share certain orientations to pregnancy management, essential differences in prenatal care and birth epistemologies underscore distinct social and economic positions. I use narrative data to document and explain these differences, which throw into relief the hierarchies of identity and need that structure immigrant women's reproductive experiences. Unveiling the different epistemologies can also help to explain sometimes radically divergent ideas that have impacted the very survivability of the birthing center. By focusing on Mexican immigrant women's reproductive decision making in an alternative birthing center, this analysis responds to feminists' call to look to the margins to understand the diversity of women's responses to what Rapp and Ginsburg have called "stratified reproduction." [source]


Unique Outcomes of Women and Men Who Were Abused

PERSPECTIVES IN PSYCHIATRIC CARE, Issue 1 2003
Claire Burke Draucker PhD
PROBLEM. To determine if individuals who have experienced extensive victimization throughout their lives tell stories about "unique outcomes." METHODS. An examination of existing narrative data collected from 27 women and 17 men who had participated in one of several qualitative studies of sexual violence. Unique outcomes stories identified from the interview transcripts were categorized according to the type of experiences described, and the nature of men an women's stores were compared. FINDINGS. Six types of unique outcomes stories were identified in the women's narratives (rebellion, breaking free, resurgence, refuge, determination, confidant) and three types in the men's narratives (reawakening, buddy and normal guy, champion). CONCLUSIONS. Unique outcomes stories are common in narratives otherwise focused on abuse. Common themes are apparent, and the nature of men's and women's stories differ markedly. [source]