An insider's guide to conducting focused ethnography on a sensitive topic : the cultural context of motherhood and pelvic floor health /
To make sense of health changes, people rely on cultural concepts about bodies, health, and illness. They interpret symptoms and seek care congruent with their cultural preferences and available resources. Focused ethnography is a topically limited version of ethnography that relies on interviews an...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
London :
SAGE Publications Ltd,
2020.
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| Series: | SAGE Research Methods Cases: Medicine and Health.
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | To make sense of health changes, people rely on cultural concepts about bodies, health, and illness. They interpret symptoms and seek care congruent with their cultural preferences and available resources. Focused ethnography is a topically limited version of ethnography that relies on interviews and is useful in studies of how people understand health, with whom they share health concerns, and what they do about health problems in their cultural context. But what happens when the health topic is so sensitive that people do not generally discuss it, perhaps do not view themselves as having it, and have no shared, common vocabulary for it? And when researchers want to include and respect variations in people's experiences across languages and ethnic groups? We designed a study of motherhood and pelvic health in new mothers' first postpartum year, with the focused ethnographic goal of describing the cultural context of new mothers' experiences of pelvic floor changes. Up to 50% of women will have measurable pelvic organ prolapse by the time they are age 75. Whether they experience symptoms or not, the greatest risk factor is vaginal childbirth. There is research on women's experiences with prolapse in middle age, but little is known about pelvic floor changes after first vaginal delivery. Team-based methods provided some advantages and challenges. In this case study, we provide an insider's view of the conduct of a team-based, comparative focused ethnography on this sensitive health topic, and the reflexivity, organization, and cultural humility that strengthened our study. |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9781529709636 1529709636 |