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

Introduction: Strengthening social protection through cash transfers has proven effective in reducing common mental disorders such as anxiety and depression. However, the acceptability of unconditional cash transfer (UCT) interventions, also known as Basic Income Support (BIS) in certain regions, for socially vulnerable young adults who have experienced first-episode psychosis (FEP) in sub-Saharan Africa, including South Africa, remains unknown. This qualitative inquiry explored the experience and acceptability of an unconditional cash transfer (UCT) intervention among patients with FEP and their caregivers.

Methods: The study was conducted at government hospitals in KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa. In this descriptive phenomenological qualitative study, we aimed to interview 15 recipients of a UCT intervention with their caregivers based on convenience sampling. An interview guide was designed to explore recipients' experiences with money utilization and budget decisions, as well as their views on preferred recipients, the effects of UCT, and their recommendations on how much money is needed to cater to their needs. Information saturation was achieved after interviewing ten FEP recipients and their caregivers. NVIVO 14 was used to analyze the data using interpretive phenomenology.

Results: The UCT intervention was well accepted, with funds used for transportation to the hospital and purchasing groceries and food. Indirectly, UCT enhances family relationships and medication adherence and reduces patient and caregiver stress.

Conclusion: The UCT intervention was acceptable and positively experienced by patients with FEP. This study highlights the need to enhance social protection mechanisms to support engagement in mental health treatment for FEP.

Purpose: Adolescence is a formative period marked by exploration, identity formation, and a growing need for belonging. Co-creative performing arts practices may support learning and relationship-building across diverse groups of young people. This study explored how adolescents without disabilities, enrolled in mainstream educational programmes, experienced and reflected on their participation in a long-term, inclusive, co-creative performing arts project (SPOR).

Materials and methods: A qualitative inductive design with three focus groups was used, grounded in phenomenological, hermeneutic, and existential traditions. A meaning-oriented approach rooted in reflective lifeworld research ensured methodological coherence, and reflexive thematic analysis facilitated a systematic yet adaptable exploration of participants' lived experience.

Results: The analysis yielded two themes: Finding pride in the challenge of co-creation and Tracing essentials for living. The latter comprised three interrelated subthemes: Seeing oneself and society with new eyes, Unlearning stereotypes through sustained encounters, and Grieving the heartfelt community.

Conclusion: Participants described emotional growth, mutual recognition, and a sense of belonging and mattering arising from collaborative artistic engagement with peers with disabilities. The findings suggest that inclusive co-creative performing arts can promote adolescents' psychosocial development and well-being, while highlighting the need for supportive structures that sustain and extend such experiences into everyday life.

Introduction: Self-compassion (SC) is associated with reduced eating disorder pathology, body dissatisfaction, and weight concerns, but most SC interventions and research samples focus on women. Because men often face unique challenges related to weight stigma and masculine norms, SC may be especially valuable in supporting emotion-regulation in health coaching programs. Little is known about how adult men engaged in weight loss interpret and experience SC, limiting the reach of interventions intended to support sustainable health behavior change. As such, the purpose of this study was to qualitatively explore how adult men seeking weight loss with health coaching make sense of SC during weight loss. Specifically, we examined experiences and meanings of SC, the perceived barriers and facilitators to practicing it, and how body image and weight-related experiences shape their understanding and application of SC.

Methods: Using reflexive thematic analysis, we explored how 11 adult men enrolled in a commercial weight-normative health coaching program made sense of self-compassion in the context of body image, dieting, and masculinity. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, transcribed, and analyzed through an inductive, interpretive process emphasizing information power and meaning-making over saturation. Researcher reflexivity and positionality were integrated throughout the analytic process.

Results: Seven themes and 20 subthemes were developed. Key themes included: (1) SC as a skill to be learned and practiced; (2) concordance between SC and self-image, including gender norms; (3) the interplay between SC and body image; (4) SC in action through mindset and behavior; (5) barriers to SC such as weight stigma, toxic masculinity, and dieting cycles; (6) facilitators to SC including life experience and upbringing; and (7) SC as a mask for disordered eating and exercise behaviors.

Discussion: Findings highlight the need to tailor SC interventions to address masculine norms, weight stigma, and internalized bias.

Purpose: This study explores the lived experiences of cancer patients in deprived areas of China, focusing on how they understand their illness, their challenges, and their coping mechanisms through the lens of the Social Ecological Model and Self-construal Theory.

Methods: A qualitative research design was employed, using semi-structured interviews and Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to explore these patients' experiences.

Results: Twelve cancer patients (75% female) participated in this study. Patients were aged 27 to 59 years old, with an average of 12 months after diagnosis. The findings reveal a multi-level interplay of challenges and coping strategies. At the individual level, patients navigated profound financial burdens and identity changes, with self-acceptance emerging as a central coping mechanism. At the interpersonal level, relational interdependence exhibited a dual nature, experienced as both a significant source of burden and a powerful catalyst for empowerment. At the community and policy level, patients contended with systemic marginalisation within a strained healthcare system, exacerbated by inadequate health policies.

Conclusions: The findings highlight the need for approaches that integrate socio-cultural and economic realities to explore the lived experiences of marginalised clinical populations comprehensively.

Purpose: This study explores mothers' lived experiences of caring for preschool children (aged 3-6) in environments affected by fine dust. The study aims to uncover how mothers perceive their protective roles and navigate challenges stemming from environmental health concerns.

Methods: A descriptive phenomenological design guided by Colaizzi's method was employed. Nine Korean mothers with active fine-dust-protection behaviors participated in semi-structured, in-depth interviews conducted between April 2020 and March 2021. Data collection continued until saturation.

Results: Analysis yielded 455 significant statements, 109 formulated meanings, 34 themes, 14 theme clusters, and five overarching categories. The core phenomenon, "Becoming a shield," encapsulates the mothers' relentless commitment to protecting their children. Key themes include awareness of fine dust health risks, active problem solving, serving as a protective barrier, confronting practical limitations, and embracing innovative strategies.

Conclusion: Findings underscore the need for tailored fine-dust response guidelines and educational programs that integrate accurate environmental health information with psychological support for mothers. Healthcare practitioners and policymakers should develop interventions enhancing maternal self-efficacy and resilience, thereby promoting sustained protective behaviors and safeguarding child health in polluted environments.

Purpose: Intimate partner violence (IPV) during the breastfeeding period endangers women's health and well-being. From a caring science perspective, it may be understood as suffering, potentially reduced through caring. This study aims to describe the meaning of caring, as experienced by women exposed to IPV during the breastfeeding period.

Methods: Nine women with experience of IPV during the breastfeeding period participated in lifeworld interviews, analyzed phenomenologically following the methodological principles of reflective lifeworld research (RLR).

Results: Caring, as experienced by women exposed to IPV during the breastfeeding period, means a potential existential refuge, further described by the constituents: an encounter requiring mutual invitation and trust; an opportunity to rediscover oneself when reflected in another's gaze; being met with insight influences the experience of exposedness; the possibility to get a break from exposedness; and being alleviated from loneliness when confirmed.

Conclusions: For care to be caring in this context it needs to be lifeworld-led and based on insights into the existential situation of breastfeeding women exposed to IPV. Through an encounter of mutual invitation and trust, caring has the potential to be an existential refuge, enabling rest, confirmation, reflection and escape from loneliness.

Purpose: This study explores gender differences in university students' experiences with perceived social support (PSS) and its impact on their mental health. It aims to understand how male and female students perceive and use social support and how these differences affect their mental well-being.

Methods: Interviews with twenty students (10 males and 10 females) from a large public university in China.

Results: Thematic analysis revealed gender differences. Female students showed stronger emotional connections with support networks but experienced added pressure from academic demands and traditional gender roles. Male students were less likely to share emotions due to cultural expectations of masculinity, which led to feelings of isolation and emotional strain. Faculty support played an important role in easing students' stress.

Conclusion: Findings highlight the need for gender-sensitive mental health strategies and inclusive policies that reduce cultural stigma and improve support systems in higher education.

Purpose: Self-harm risk is highest between ages 12-19, making it essential for schools to have clear, evidence-based practices for identifying and responding to self-injurious thoughts and behaviours (SITBs). This scoping review summarises best-practice responses in primary and high school settings, focusing on non-clinical staff. It provides a foundation for developing consistent, evidence-based whole-school guidelines.

Methods: PubMed, CINAHL and Embase were systematically searched (1 January 2000-31 March 2024) for English-language, peer-reviewed studies examining school staff responses to student SITBs. Studies reporting only prevalence or trends were excluded. Final studies were selected through a blinded, multistage screening process by paired reviewers. Data were analysed using narrative synthesis.

Results: Forty-one articles met inclusion criteria. Most were published after 2005, conducted in the USA (n = 17), used qualitative designs (n = 15), involved mixed school staff (n = 14) and were based in high schools (n = 23). Overall study quality was fair to low. Findings indicated that effective school responses rely on whole-school approaches, strong leadership support, clearly defined roles and procedures, crisis response teams, and regular staff training.

Conclusions: Despite gaps in the evidence, this review consolidates current best practice and can inform future guidelines to strengthen school staff capacity and confidence in supporting students experiencing SITBs.

Introduction: This study explored how youth with mental health issues, peer support workers, and primary care professionals perceive youth's needs while receiving support, key elements of peer support, and its integration into primary healthcare.

Method: Twenty-eight semi-structured interviews were conducted and analyzed thematically to identify youth's needs, core components of peer support, and collaboration challenges between peer support services and primary care.

Results: All stakeholder groups recognized peer support as a valuable, low-threshold complement to traditional care, particularly for those awaiting treatment or lacking social support. Youth emphasized needs for knowledge, destigmatization, validation and connection - needs specifically addressed by the informal, empathetic, and non-hierarchical nature of peer support. Peer support workers and professionals emphasized the need to balance authenticity with safety and professional boundaries. Effective integration requires structured referral pathways, clear communication channels, confidentiality safeguards, and role clarity. Divergent expectations around responsibility for information sharing and formal requirements on lived experience highlight areas for improvement. Flexible peer support options that match youth's changing needs were seen as essential.

Discussion: While peer support services offer a valuable addition to youth mental healthcare, its integration with primary care remains complex and requires improved communication, role clarification, and adaptable support options.

Purpose: This qualitative study aims to explore the lived experiences of 11 children and adolescents from Norway, aged 10 to 17, who are participating in a two-year community-based, family-centered intervention designed to promote weight management through dietary changes and increased physical activity.

Methods: Using a hermeneutic-phenomenological method, we have obtained empirical data through individual interviews, field notes, and participant observation. The analysis is inspired by van Manen's hermeneutic thematic approach.

Findings: We derived four main themes : Participation in a lifestyle intervention involves being persuaded into it; Participation involves the gradual discovery of valuable aspects of place and space; Participation involves becoming a member of a new community; and Participation entails engaging in activities that may cause uncomfortable feelings and fears.

Concluding remarks: The findings reveal how the guidance from health professionals and parents to participate in a lifestyle intervention triggers a range of emotions, including vulnerability, frustration, surprise, and resistance. The participants adapt to the intervention in various ways over time, describing how their experiences with the intervention are intertwined with factors such as the environment, equipment, and interpersonal relationships with peers and healthcare professionals. The clinical implications suggest that group-based lifestyle interventions can lead to changes that extend well beyond merely altering weight and dietary habits. Also, by examining the participants' lived experiences, we can tailor interventions that resonate deeper with each participant's needs and expectations.