Health and suffering are associated with social support: a cross-sectional study of women and mothers with exhaustion and pain.

BACKGROUND: Despite women are generally overrepresented in behavioral, mental, and musculoskeletal disorders, motherhood as a central part of women's life is poorly understood in relation to exhaustion and long-lasting pain. Mothers' health impairments imply suffering both for herself and her family. A profound understanding of health is needed taking mothers' subjective health experience, their suffering and life situation into account to give women, their families and society better prerequisites to alleviate exhaustion and long-lasting pain. The aim of the study was to describe health and suffering of women and mothers undergoing rehabilitation for long-lasting pain and exhaustion and its correlation with perceived social support. METHODS: The study had a cross-sectional design with an exploratory approach. A main sample consisted of 166 women undergoing rehabilitation for exhaustion and long-lasting pain and a reference sample included 129 women working and studying within health care professions. Both samples included women with and without children. Women's subjective health and suffering was assessed from a caring science perspective using the recently developed and validated Health and Suffering Scale. Two additional scales measuring exhaustion and social support were distributed among the two samples. Descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression models, including health and suffering and perceived social support, were analyzed. RESULTS: Mothers undergoing rehabilitation for pain and exhaustion reported significantly poorer health and more suffering compared to healthy mothers, but similar health and suffering when compared with childless women in rehabilitation. Health and suffering were correlated with perceived social support among both healthy and exhausted mothers. In both samples, the correlation between health and suffering and social support was stronger among mothers than among women without children. CONCLUSIONS: Women and mothers living with exhaustion and long-lasting pain show signs of unbearable suffering and perceived insufficient social support. Social support from various sources particularly helps mothers to create meaning in life and make their suffering bearable. Hence, health care must address the fact that mothers are dependent on their immediate social environment and that this dependency interacts with their health and suffering on an existential level.

Women's Lived Experiences of Chronic Pain: Faces of Gendered Suffering.

Women are overrepresented in pain rehabilitation. They seem to be more exposed to comorbidity between mental illness and diseases of the musculoskeletal system than men, implying that besides biopsychosocial factors, gender relations and cultural context should be considered. The aim of the study is to understand the lived experience of women with chronic pain from a caring science and gender perspective. Gadamerian philosophical hermeneutics has been used to analyze interviews from 21 women living with chronic pain in Sweden. The hermeneutical process revealed intertwined experiences of overperformance, loneliness, pain, and exhaustion. Women's experience of an overwhelming life situation and the significance of mutual dependency seem to be central to health and suffering in women with chronic pain. We suggest, contemporary health care to acknowledge women's health and suffering in relation to their life situation and prevailing gender roles.

Parenting stress and its association with perceived agreement about the disclosure decision in parents following donor conception.

INTRODUCTION: For many donor-conceiving heterosexual parents, the process of deciding whether and what to tell children about their genetic origin is challenging. We hypothesized that incomplete couple agreement about disclosure could be associated with parenting stress. The aim of the study was to investigate: (1) parenting stress levels among heterosexual parents of young children following gamete donation and (2) whether parenting stress is related to perceived agreement about disclosure of the donor conception to the children. MATERIAL AND METHODS: This study is part of the longitudinal multicenter Swedish Study on Gamete Donation and included a total of 213 heterosexual parents with children aged 1-4 years following oocyte donation (n = 103) and sperm donation (n = 110). Parents individually completed a questionnaire that included validated instruments on parenting stress (SPSQ) and relationship quality (ENRICH), as well as a study-specific measure on disclosure agreement. Multiple regression analysis was applied. RESULTS: Incomplete couple agreement on disclosure to the children was not statistically significantly associated with increased levels of parenting stress. Relationship satisfaction consistently and significantly accounted for variation in parenting stress levels, indicating that relationship satisfaction had a buffering impact on parenting stress. CONCLUSIONS: Parental stress does not appear to be negatively influenced by incomplete couple agreement about disclosure to children. As children grow up, reaching agreement about what to tell the child about the donor conception might become more relevant for couples' stress related to parenthood.

The health and suffering scale: Item reduction, reliability and validity among women undergoing rehabilitation for exhaustion and long-lasting pain.

AIM: To investigate the necessity of an item reduction and to evaluate estimates of dimensionality, reliability and validity of the Health and Suffering Scale among two groups of women, one undergoing rehabilitation for exhaustion and long-lasting pain and one reference group. DESIGN: Psychometric evaluation of the scale using cross-sectional data. METHOD: The Health and Suffering Scale is a self-report scale which measures perceived suffering in relation to health on a semantic visual analogue scale. Classical and modern test theory were applied for item reduction and to explore estimates of reliability and validity. RESULTS: The Health and Suffering Scale was found to be unidimensional, nine of originally twenty items were part of a consistent factor structure and hierarchical order. These items were internally consistent, discriminated between patients and healthy respondents, and had an excellent level of separation of individuals experiencing various levels of health and suffering. Re-test reliability estimates were moderate.