Developing a cultural model for long-term female urinary incontinence

Christine Wanich Bradway and Frances Barg

Social Science & Medicine, 2006, vol. 63, issue 12, 3150-3161

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to examine the subjective experience of long-term urinary incontinence and to show how a cultural model helps define that experience. Using a narrative approach within a cultural models framework, the specific aims are to describe and analyze: (1) what urinary incontinence means; and (2) how that meaning is constructed and negotiated by women living with urinary incontinence. 17 community-dwelling women (from Philadelphia, USA, and its immediate suburbs) participated in semi-structured interviews. Plot types and shared themes were compared with themes that emerged from media representations of female incontinence, and a cultural model was developed. Findings suggest: (1) the meaning of long-term female urinary incontinence is constructed and negotiated as a result of individual and shared experiences; (2) the cultural model constructed by women differs significantly from the professional, primarily biomedical model; and (3) women's narratives provide a method for accommodating similarities and differences between lay and professional models.

Keywords: Cognitive; anthropology; Women's; narratives; Female; urinary; incontinence; USA; Narratives; Women (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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