Women living with chronic illness experienced transition that involved stages of distress and a quest for ordinariness
QUESTION: What is the meaning of living with chronic illness for midlife women?
Design
A feminist participatory research design.
Setting
No fixed setting because of data collection method (email and letter writing).
Participants
81 women aged 30–50 years (mean age 44 y) who identified themselves as living with adult onset chronic illness. Women were from Australia, New Zealand, Samoa, North America, and the United Kingdom.
Methods
Through email and letter writing spanning 12 months, women told their stories about their experiences of living with chronic illness. The frequency of correspondence varied at the discretion of each participant. Correspondence data from participants were thematically analysed. A subset of engaged participants was actively involved in developing constructs and themes by offering validation, clarification, and interpretation.
Main findings
2 major themes emerged: extraordinariness, which represented the phase of turmoil and distress that occurred when the women first experienced their chronic illness; and ordinariness, which occurred over time …
