International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-Being最新文献

Purpose: This study aimed to qualitatively examine the daily lives of motorcycle-based food delivery workers, focusing on how they experience, perceive, and interpret their health-related issues.

Methods: Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with nine MFDWs in South Korea between July and September 2024 to explore their perceptions of health. Participants were recruited through purposive and snowball sampling, and data were analyzed using thematic analysis.

Results: Thematic analysis revealed the following key findings: MFDWs' challenging working conditions posed physical and emotional stressors, which contributed to negligent driving and unhealthy habits. Although they recognized traffic accidents as the most critical health risk, they exhibited a tendency toward risky driving behaviors. Unhealthy lifestyles were linked to further health deterioration. While the majority showed a passive attitude toward health management, a few adopted individual strategies to maintain their health.

Conclusions: The findings suggest the need for policy-level attention to mitigate traffic accident risk factors among MFDWs. Larger and more diverse studies are required to confirm these findings and to provide a stronger evidence base for policy recommendations. In addition, delivery applications could be further refined to help reduce occupational risks, and the development of tailored health promotion interventions may support their health and well-being.

Purpose: Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a genetic disease primarily affecting the lungs and digestive system. Individuals with advanced CF lung disease may require transplantation to survive. Family members often take on significant caregiving roles, facing both emotional and practical challenges throughout the transplantation process. This study explores the experiences of such family members to inform and improve supportive care practices.

Method: Employing a naturalistic, exploratory design, this qualitative study used purposive sampling to recruit 19 family members of lung transplant recipients with CF. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.

Results: The analysis identified three main themes and eight subthemes: (I) balancing hope and despair on the waiting list, (II) navigating challenges and finding relief after the transplantation, and (III) unmet support and informational needs before and after transplantation.

Conclusion: This study highlights the emotional burden and caregiving responsibilities shouldered by family members of individuals with CF who have undergone lung transplantation. The findings emphasise the importance of person- and family-centred interventions, including support for palliative care discussions. A more structured and inclusive framework is essential to address the often-overlooked needs of families throughout the transplantation process.

Background: Oral food challenges are indicated when food allergies cannot be confirmed by clinical history or investigations, such as blood or skin-prick tests. However, few studies have examined adults' experiences of oral food challenges.

Methods: Semi-structured, individual interviews were conducted with 18 adults who had undergone an oral food challenge at a UK hospital.

Results: Three main themes were identified using thematic analysis, describing experiences before, during, and after testing: "A limited and scared life," "facing fear and uncertainty in a safe environment," and "living with revised boundaries." Prior to the test, participants described a life characterized by fear of reactions, hypervigilance, planning and restrictive diets, limiting social participation. During testing, participants experienced an emotional rollercoaster, confronting something previously avoided, which could potentially cause a severe reaction. After testing, participants reported reduced fear and uncertainty following clarification of their allergies, leading to greater freedom, and for those who tested negative, a return to viewing food as a source of pleasure, rather than fear.

Conclusions: Oral food challenges reduce fear and uncertainty surrounding allergies, providing clarity about which foods trigger reactions. Greater availability of oral food challenges would enable adults with suspected allergies to live less restricted and more enjoyable lives.

Aim: "Empathy" is a key concept in dementia care and considered important to improve the quality of care. However, how empathy should be promoted among dementia care nurses remains unclear. Thus, this study aimed to clarify the role of nurses' empathy in caring for people with dementia.

Methods: Certified nurse specialists in gerontological and dementia nursing were recruited as participants using snowball sampling. Data were collected from seven participants in March 2023 through focus-group interviews and analyzed qualitatively and inductively.

Results: Six categories related to care experiences were formed using fifty-six codes in five stages. The categories were as follows: i) Turn toward each other, considering personal diversity; ii) Actively approach them by understanding and acknowledging their thoughts; iii) Experience feelings of warmth after comprehending their personalities; iv) Experience an emotional resonance with them; v) Sharpen own senses to deeply understand their experiences; and vi) Work as a team to provide the most suitable care.

Conclusion: The results demonstrated that empathy is a key element in the interactions between nurses and people with dementia that contributes to more harmonious relationships. These findings can be used to educate nurses on dementia care, which may help reduce nurses' burnout.

Objectives: Migrant Domestic Workers (MDWs) face adverse living and working conditions that place them at a heightened risk of poor mental health outcomes. While prior research has examined MDWs' coping strategies and resilience, little is known about how they understand and engage in self-compassion, an intrapersonal process strongly linked to mental well-being. This study aimed to examine how MDWs conceptualize self-compassion and the sociocultural factors that influence their capacity to practice it.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten female Filipino and Indonesian MDWs living in Singapore recruited through purposive and snowball sampling. Data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis.

Results: Three interrelated themes were generated: (1) grounding self-compassion in self-worth and identity, (2) contextual conditions shaping self-compassion, and (3) enacting self-compassion in everyday life. These themes illustrate the complex interplay between participants' internalized self-perceptions, cultural narratives, and structural conditions that shape their engagement with self-compassion.

Conclusions: The findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of self-compassion in marginalized caregiving populations. They advocate for the need to address structural determinants of MDWs' well-being and to develop culturally sensitive psychoeducation and interventions.

Purpose: This study focused on how adults with cerebral palsy successfully confronted ableism during encounters with others and successfully coped with ableism in general.

Methods: Adults with cerebral palsy led this critical participatory action research project, in which ten adults with cerebral palsy shared their experiences (via an online survey or interview) of successfully confronting ableism (situations, actions taken, and outcomes) and coping with ableism.

Results: Participants had difficulty recalling successful confrontations due to failing to recognise ableism, ignoring it, or being unsure whether confrontations were successful. Of the 23 situations described, common forms of ableism were denial of privacy, perceived helplessness, and spread effect. Actions taken in successful confrontations were educating perpetrators, being independent, self-advocating or requesting advocacy, attempting to make perpetrators feel uncomfortable, and disengaging with perpetrators (and encouraging others to do similar). Outcomes were changed perpetrator behaviour, apparent changed perpetrator perceptions, actions to prevent recurrence of ableism, disengagement, changed thinking, and feeling successful. Adults coped with ableism through changing their own thinking about disability and ableism, engaging in everyday activities, seeking social support, and making efforts to change society.

Conclusions: Harnessing this knowledge may assist people with cerebral palsy to challenge the social oppression they face.

Purpose: Undocumented Afghan women migrants in Pakistan face profound barriers to reproductive healthcare. This study examines the informal reproductive healthcare strategies of undocumented Afghan women migrants living in Peshawar, focusing on the invisible safety nets they construct in response to legal and institutional exclusion.

Method: The study employed a qualitative research method by conducting narrative in-depth interviews, focus group discussions with undocumented Afghan women migrants, and five key informant interviews. The study conducted a narrative-informed thematic analysis grounded in concepts of social networks, everyday bordering, and reproductive justice.

Results: The study findings revealed that public facilities are widely perceived as sites of document checking, humiliation, and potential exposure to immigration authorities, leading women to anticipate exclusion and pre-emptively turn away from formal care. In this context, traditional birth attendants, small private clinics, pharmacies, and home-based remedies form a plural, informal care landscape, accessed and evaluated through dense kinship and neighborhood networks. Community-based practices, rotating loans, information sharing, accompaniment, and emotional support, operate as invisible safety nets that partially compensate for state neglect..

Conclusion: The study calls for decoupling reproductive care from immigration control while engaging pragmatically with existing informal providers and community networks to promote reproductive justice and well-being.

Purpose: Pregnancy is a time of rapid physical transformations. Medical and societal pressures regarding women's weight and body image throughout pregnancy may increase body dissatisfaction, which can negatively affect psychological health and health behaviors. Yet healthcare providers (HCPs) often feel uncomfortable addressing the topic. This study explored women's experiences of body changes during pregnancy, as well as the practices and challenges faced by midwives and dietitians in supporting them.

Methods: A purposeful sample of 20 pregnant women (16-32 weeks of gestation) in Switzerland participated in face-to-face semi-structured interviews. In addition, four focus groups were conducted with six midwives and four dietitians. All narratives were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using thematic analysis.

Results: Three themes were identified in pregnant women's interviews: navigating body changes, managing the unmanageable, and experiencing lack of support around body image and weight gain. Women worried about weight gain, attempted to monitor their diet, and often felt unsupported by HCPs. Two themes were identified in HCP focus groups: reassuring and conveying information, and experiencing practical obstacles and societal challenges. HCPs acknowledged the sensitivity of the topic and described adopting a reassuring stance while conveying information and seeking ways to help women make peace with their bodies.

Conclusions: Tailored support for body image during pregnancy is needed to promote maternal and fetal health. Midwives and dietitians are well placed to provide interdisciplinary consultations addressing gestational weight gain and body dissatisfaction. Training in positive body image could enhance their confidence in addressing these issues.

Purpose: Contemporary university communities have been reshaped by changing societal expectations, the COVID-19 pandemic, and structural reforms, increasing the pace, complexity, and demands of academic work for both staff and students. These pressures disrupt existential well-being (EWB), understood as a multidimensional construct encompassing meaning, purpose, coherence, and relatedness. This study examines how university staff conceptualize well-being support in academic communities and how EWB appears in their accounts.

Method: The study was conducted in Finnish universities representing diverse geographical locations and institutional sizes. Data consist of 14 semi-structured interviews with staff working in well-being-related expert roles. The data were analysed using a data-driven, inductive Template Analysis approach supported by Atlas.ti.

Results: Well-being in universities was found to be supported through three interrelated domains: well-being management, pedagogical well-being, and community resilience. These form the structural basis for sustainable EWB practices but require sufficient institutional resources. Hybrid teaching and remote work challenged emotional safety and social connectedness. EWB emerged primarily from shared institutional practices, particularly teacher-student relationships and early engagement.

Conclusion: The study emphasizes integrating EWB into university practices by addressing both individual and collective dimensions. Structural conditions, supportive culture, and meaningful social connections are central to fostering EWB as a pedagogical and communal value.

Purpose: This study aimed to explore and describe how coordinated care transitions aligned with legislation when older adults are discharged from in-patient care to their homes.

Methods: A mixed-method (QUAL + qual) design was used. The core data component (QUAL) consisted of copies of 15 older adults' healthcare and social care records. The supplementary data component (qual) encompassed individual interviews. All data related to the same older adults, whose coordinated care transitions took place between January to June 2022. The analytical procedure followed a deductive thematic analysis.

Results: Findings showed that individual care plans were often missing or inadequately documented. Documentation of older adults' participation was frequently poor and inconsistent, with many decisions made without their input. However, some documents and interviews indicated that older adults had genuinely participated. The discrepancy between documented procedures and actual experiences reveals significant variability in older adults' inclusion.

Conclusion: This study highlights the frequent exclusion of older adults from coordinated care transition process and deficiencies in documentation. The findings underscore the urgent need for standardized and inclusive documentation practices, as well as improved communication strategies, to ensure more person-centred care transitions, in which older adults are genuinely involved and well-informed about their care transitions.