Knowing the entire story - a focus group study on patient experiences with chronic Lyme-associated symptoms (chronic Lyme disease)

CONCLUSION: Central themes found in CLD patients' communication are 1. the experience of significant symptoms, 2. for which adequate relief is only rarely found from conventional medical practitioners, and 3. that are largely invisible to the outside world. Verbalizing these themes, patients use various repertoires for their shared experiences, such as a feeling of abandonment or not being heard by the medical system, feelings of loss with respect to their previous health, and the idea that they might have been better off had they been diagnosed sooner. Working with these repertoires will enable healthcare providers to establish a shared perspective with their CLD patients, thus engaging in more fruitful doctor-patient communication. We hypothesize that these findings are not unique to CLD, but may also be applicable to other conditions with an uncertain aetiology, such as Long COVID.PMID:35655143 | DOI:10.1186/s12875-022-01736-5

Source: Primary Care - June 2, 2022 Category: Primary Care Authors: M E Baarsma S A Claassen H E van der Horst J W Hovius J M Sanders Source Type: research