Understanding how college students characterise and cope with chronic pain
A thematic analysis of expressive writing samples
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12692567 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kaitlyn Root (Saint Michael's College), Sarah Nosek (0000-0003-2311-437X, Saint Michael's College, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 49 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 370-377 |
| Publication date | 2022-12-22 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Medical Humanities (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1468-215X • E-ISSN: 1473-4265 |
| Publisher | BMJ (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1136/medhum-2022-012466 |
| PMID | 36549859 |
| OpenAlex | W4312113078 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 27 |
College students who experience chronic pain are a frequently overlooked population. This research attempts to provide insight into the language that college students use to describe their experiences with chronic pain, challenges they face and coping strategies they use. Over the course of 4 consecutive days, participants responded to an expressive writing prompt asking them to reflect on their emotions and thoughts related to being a college student with chronic pain. Writing samples were then analysed to identify themes pertaining to words with a positive or negative emotional valence, terms used to characterise pain, metaphors used to describe pain, challenges faced, and positive and negative coping strategies used. Results showed that participants were more likely to use negatively valenced words than positively valenced words to describe their pain. Several common words and phrases were used to characterise pain, including metaphors. Finally, participants reported a number of challenges associated with their lived-experience of chronic pain, as well as positive and negative strategies used to cope with those challenges. These findings help to put into perspective the language used to understand, and attempt to cope with, the challenges faced by college students experiencing chronic pain. Research must continue to investigate the needs of this population so that they can be properly supported physically, emotionally, socially and academically
Chronic pain · Coping (psychology · Developmental psychology · Perspective (graphical · Population · Psychiatry · Qualitative research · Thematic analysis · Valence (chemistry · Clinical Psychology · Empathy and Medical Education · Medicine · Mental Health via Writing · Pain Management and Placebo Effect · Psychology · Social Psychology
Use of Metaphor in the Discourse on Cancer
Confronting a traumatic event
Prevalence of Chronic Pain and High-Impact Chronic Pain Among Adults — United States, 2016
Chronic Pain as Emotion
Descriptions of Pain, Metaphor, and Embodied Simulation
Pain and its Metaphors
Pain as metaphor
That Pain Is Genuine to Them”
Traumatic experience and psychosomatic disease
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |