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Turkish Migrant Women Encountering Health Care in Stockholm: A Qualitative Study of Somatization and Illness Meaning

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Abstract

This paper presents the results from a qualitative study conducted withthe aim of exploring structures of illness meaning among somatizingTurkish-born migrant women (age 31–48) living in a poor and lowstatus suburb of Stockholm in contact with local health care services.Two to three interviews regarding experiences and understanding ofillness were conducted as well as one year, validating follow-upinterviews. Interviews were analysed with a grounded theory approach.Results are presented as the participants' agenda of understanding.Distress was communicated by concrete expressions about the body,emotions, social and life situation. Pain was prominent and oftenlateralised to one side of the body. The use of traditional expressionsof distress ranged from open use to avoidance. Attribution wascharacterised by verbalising links of coherence between health andaspects of life. Psychiatric attribution was rarely accepted or valuedas a tool for recovery, or as helpful in linking bodily symptoms toemotional distress. Three main sources for healing were used: medicalcare in Sweden and in Turkey and traditional treatment. Own capacity toinfluence recovery was mostly regarded as low. Relations to family andthe clinician were regarded as important to recovery. The encounter withlocal health care had brought the participants in contact with apsychological agenda of understanding their illness and new ways ofdealing with illness and healing. Some expressed a feeling of beingmisunderstood whereas some related positive experiences ofre-evaluation. They were all actively trying, but experiencing varyingdegrees of difficulty, to grasp the meaning of the caregiver. Theresults of the study point to the mutual need of exploring meaning inthe clinical encounter to help patients make sense out of differentperspectives of illness and healing. The need for enhanced knowledgeabout this process in a migration context will be discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Transcultural Psychiatry, S161 04, Bromma, Sweden

    Sofie Bäärnhielm

  2. National Institute for Psychosocial Factors and Health, Stockholm, Sweden

    Solvig Ekblad

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  1. Sofie Bäärnhielm
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  2. Solvig Ekblad
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Bäärnhielm, S., Ekblad, S. Turkish Migrant Women Encountering Health Care in Stockholm: A Qualitative Study of Somatization and Illness Meaning. Cult Med Psychiatry 24, 431–452 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005671732703

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