Life Satisfaction and Adaptation in Persons with Parkinson’s Disease—A Qualitative Study

Lina Rosengren, Anna Forsberg, Christina Brogårdh and Jan Lexell
Additional contact information
Lina Rosengren: Department of Health Sciences, Lund University, S-221 00 Lund, Sweden
Anna Forsberg: Department of Health Sciences, Lund University, S-221 00 Lund, Sweden
Christina Brogårdh: Department of Health Sciences, Lund University, S-221 00 Lund, Sweden
Jan Lexell: Department of Health Sciences, Lund University, S-221 00 Lund, Sweden

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 6, 1-12

Abstract: Persons with Parkinson’s disease (PD) need to adapt to their progressive disability to achieve and maintain a high degree of life satisfaction (LS), but little is known about the meaning of LS and adaptation. This study aimed to gain an in-depth understanding of the meaning of LS and adaptation in persons with PD. Open-ended in-depth interviews were performed with 13 persons diagnosed with PD, 9 women, 3 men, and one non-binary person (mean age 54 years, mean time since diagnosis 3.4 years). The interviews were analyzed using a phenomenological–hermeneutic approach. The participants were in the process of adapting to their new health situation. There were two quite distinct groups: one that adapted through acceptance and one that struggled to resist the disease and the profound impact it had on their lives. The thematic structural analysis covers eight themes illustrating the meaning of LS and adaptation, through either acceptance or resistance. Adaptation to PD involves a transitional process characterized by either acceptance or resistance, which influences a person’s LS. Acceptance makes LS possible, whereas resistance constitutes a behavioral barrier to adaptation and LS. Rehabilitation professionals need to understand this individual process to be able to support a person with PD to reach and maintain a high level of LS. Understanding the link between LS and adaptation can support rehabilitation professionals to provide targeted interventions for people with PD.

Keywords: adaptation; psychological; Parkinson’s disease; quality of life; qualitative research; self-management; sense of coherence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/6/3308/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/6/3308/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:6:p:3308-:d:522491

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().