Objective: To describe the way in which the fibromyalgia patients understand the meaning of their illness.
Design: Qualitative, empirical phenomenological psychological method.
Setting: A collaborative transdisciplinary interview study of patients' described experiences of living with fibromyalgia. No therapeutic relationships existed between patients and researchers.
Subjects: Eighteen patients with fibromyalgia were interviewed. Ten of the 18 taped interviews were transcribed and analysed.
Main outcome measures: Patients' narratives, described experiences of living with fibromyalgia.
Results: The patients were intensively involved in efforts to get their self-images as ill persons confirmed. Their experience was that the disease started dramatically, with a variety of capriciously appearing symptoms of unknown cause that gave rise to the suffering. The fibromyalgia patients seemed to develop strategies to cope with a precarious self-image and find ways to manage the thought of what the future would bring.
Conclusion: The meaning structures revealed in the patients' ways of describing their experiences of living with fibromyalgia seemed to be partially constituted by their efforts to stand forth as afflicted with a disease, which could be a way to help them to manage the demands that they placed upon themselves.