Keeping in balance on the multimorbidity tightrope

A narrative analysis of older patients' experiences of living with and managing multimorbidity

Dados Bibliográficos

ID4593869
AutoresNina Fudge (0000-0002-7161-4355, Queen Mary University of London, autor correspondente), Deborah Swinglehurst (0000-0003-1261-9268, Queen Mary University of London)
Ano2022
Volume292
Páginas114532
Data de publicação2022-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoSocial Science & Medicine (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0277-9536 • E-ISSN: 1873-5347
EditoraElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114532
PMID34810031
OpenAlexW3213462279
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas8
Referências citadas35

Primary care management of patients with multimorbidity in the UK is underpinned by clinical guidelines, quality standards and measurable targets which govern practices of risk management and disease control. There is concern that standardised approaches may not always be appropriate for older patients living with multimorbidity. Using a narrative approach, we elicited the voices of older people living with multiple conditions in order to rethink chronicity, and consider what their accounts might mean for reconfiguring care practices. Within an ethnographic study of multimorbidity and polypharmacy, we conducted in-depth interviews, based on the Biographical Narrative Interpretive Method, with 24 participants aged 65 to 94. Participants were recruited from three general practices in England. All had two or more chronic conditions and were prescribed ten or more medicines. Our analysis draws on Bakhtinian theory, tracing the multiple ways in which participants voiced living with multimorbidity. In this paper, we focus on 'keeping in balance' which emerged as a key meta-conceptualisation across our dataset. Adopting the metaphor of the 'multimorbidity tightrope' we explore the precarity of patients' experiences and show their struggle to create coherence from within a deeply ambiguous living situation. We consider how and to what extent participants' narrative constructions co-opt or resist normative biomedical framings of multimorbidity. Our analysis foregrounds the complex ways in which patients' voices and values may sometimes be at odds with those promoted within professional guidelines. Narrative approaches may offer significant potential for reorienting healthcare towards enabling patients to live a flourishing life, even when facing significant adversity

Metaphor · Narrative · Narrative inquiry · Normative · Political science · Polypharmacy · Sociology · Chronic Disease Management Strategies · Diabetes Management and Education · Medicine · Primary Care and Health Outcomes · Psychology