'It takes time, but recovering makes it worthwhile' - A qualitative study of long-term users' experiences of physiotherapy in primary health care.

Abstract

In several European countries, patients with chronic pain conditions are high consumers of physicians’ and physiotherapists’ health services in primary health care. This study aimed to explore how patients in a Norwegian context make sense of their long-term use of physiotherapy. Narrative interviews were conducted with six long-term users. The data material was subjected to a narrative analysis with a focus on the stories’ content and how health professionals and informants were inscribed in the stories. The stories provide rich and varied information about the informants’ experiences with prior and present health services inscribed in their experiences of illness and recovery. The narrative’s introduction portrays a shared illness narrative, centered around negative experiences as illustrated by the theme ‘A long time searching for explanations and solutions to recover’. The narrative’s plot describes a gradually ascending story of recovery where abilities overshadowed disabilities, as the informants are ‘Learning their own meaningful ways to proceed’. The narrative has no definite ending, but instead depicts an ‘Uncertainty about future and own ability to reverse relapse’. The shared narrative’s storyline is that ‘It takes time, but recovering makes it worthwhile’.