A meta-ethnography of patients' experiences of chronic pelvic pain: Struggling to construct chronic pelvic pain as 'real'

Journal article

Aim: To review systematically and integrate the findings of qualitative research to increase our understanding of patients' experiences of chronic pelvic pain. Background: Chronic pelvic pain is a prevalent pain condition with a high disease burden for men and women. Its multifactorial nature makes it challenging for clinicians and patients. Design: Synthesis of qualitative research using meta-ethnography. Data Sources: Five electronic bibliographic databases from inception until March 2014 supplemented by citation tracking. Of 488 papers retrieved, 32 met the review aim. Review Methods: Central to meta-ethnography is identifying 'concepts' and developing a conceptual model through constant comparison. Concepts are the primary data of meta-ethnography. Two team members read each paper to identify and collaboratively describe the concepts. We next compared concepts across studies and organized them into categories with shared meaning. Finally, we developed a conceptual model, or line of argument, to explain the conceptual categories. Results: Our findings incorporate the following categories into a conceptual model: relentless and overwhelming pain; threat to self; unpredictability, struggle to construct pain as normal or pathological; a culture of secrecy; validation by diagnosis; ambiguous experience of health care; elevation of experiential knowledge and embodiment of knowledge through a community. Conclusion: The innovation of our model is to demonstrate, for the first time, the central struggle to construct 'pathological' vs. 'normal' chronic pelvic pain, a struggle that is exacerbated by a culture of secrecy. More research is needed to explore men's experience and to compare this with women's experience.

Authors: Toye, F; Seers, K; Barker, K

• Publisher: Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• Journal: Journal of Advanced Nursing
• Volume: 70
• Issue: 12
• Pages: 2713-2727
• Publication date: 2014-12-01
• DOI: 10.1111/jan.12485
• EISSN: 1365-2648
• ISSN: 0309-2402
• Language: English
• Keywords: Pelvic pain; Systematic; Endometriosis; Meta-ethnography; Qualitative research; Review; Nursing; Chronic prostatitis with chronic pelvic pain syndrome