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Updated: Sep 2, 2025

Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure
Published on: September 19, 2019
Everyday life with childhood functional constipation: A qualitative phenomenological study of parents' experiences
Gunilla Flankegård1, Evalotte Mörelius2, Patrik Rytterström1
1Linköping University, Department of Health, Medicine and Caring Sciences, Sweden.
Abstract:
Childhood functional constipation (FC) is a worldwide problem with treatment regiments affecting everyday life.
Aim:
To explore parents´ experiences of living with a child with FC and its impact on everyday family life.
Method:
A qualitative phenomenological interview study using a reflective lifeworld research approach. Interviews with 15 parents of otherwise healthy children aged 1-14 years affected by FC.
Findings:
Shame is the driving force making parents put everyday life on hold. The quest for control, self-imposed loneliness, guilt, inadequacy, and frustrating battles become essential parts of everyday life to protect it from FC-related shame.
Conclusion:
FC has as great an impact on everyday life as any childhood illness. Every part of family life is affected by FC. Continuously family support and guidance are needed.
Practice Implications:
Healthcare professionals need to take FC more seriously, listen to the parents and try to understand their experiences of everyday life to enable custom made care plans with the family-unit in focus. Care with clinical sensitivity might help parents deal with the attendant shame and stigmatization that stem from illness beliefs about FC.
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