 Pilgrimage of pain: The illness experiences of women with repetition strain injury and the search for credibilityJanice Reid, Christine Ewan and Eva Lowy Social Science & Medicine, 1991, vol. 32, issue 5, 601-612 Abstract: Repetition strain injury (RSI), a non-specific and controversial constellation of work-related hand, arm and neck symptoms, became epidemic in Australian industry in the early 1980s. Fifty-two women who worked in a telecommunications organisation and a chicken processing factory and had been diagnosed as having RSI were interviewed about their perceptions and experiences of the illness. Their accounts of the search for caring and treatment, including their encounter with health and medical practitioners, suggest that the need to be believed and to establish their integrity dominated their 'pilgrimage'. The failure of the dominant explanations of RSI to accommodate the psychosocial and political dimensions of the illness thwarted this quest and, it is argued, contributed to its chronicity. Keywords: occupational; injury; chronic; pain; stigma; repetition; strain; injury (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:32:y:1991:i:5:p:601-612 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.