Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 10, 2026
A Quantitative Sensory Testing Paradigm to Obtain Measures of Pain Processing in Patients Undergoing Breast Cancer Surgery
Published on: January 18, 2018
A phenomenological study of fibromyalgia. Patient perspectives
O Hellström1, J Bullington, G Karlsson
1Department of Family Medicine, Umeå University, Sweden.
Objective:
To describe the way in which the fibromyalgia patients understand the meaning of their illness.
Design:
Qualitative, empirical phenomenological psychological method.
Setting:
A collaborative transdisciplinary interview study of patients' described experiences of living with fibromyalgia. No therapeutic relationships existed between patients and researchers.
Subjects:
Eighteen patients with fibromyalgia were interviewed. Ten of the 18 taped interviews were transcribed and analysed.
Main Outcome Measures:
Patients' narratives, described experiences of living with fibromyalgia.
Results:
The patients were intensively involved in efforts to get their self-images as ill persons confirmed. Their experience was that the disease started dramatically, with a variety of capriciously appearing symptoms of unknown cause that gave rise to the suffering. The fibromyalgia patients seemed to develop strategies to cope with a precarious self-image and find ways to manage the thought of what the future would bring.
Conclusion:
The meaning structures revealed in the patients' ways of describing their experiences of living with fibromyalgia seemed to be partially constituted by their efforts to stand forth as afflicted with a disease, which could be a way to help them to manage the demands that they placed upon themselves.
