Transferring patients’s experiences of change from the context of physiotherapy to daily life

Abstract

Purpose: In the treatment of patients with long-lasting musculoskeletal pain, the challenge is to identify causal and sustaining factors and targeted treatment in order to improve function. Norwegian Psychomotor Physiotherapy (NPMP) is an approach often applied to patients with such pain. Long-term NPMP processes from the patients’ perspective have been studied and discussed in the light of phenomenology of the body.

The study purpose was to explore what kind of changes patients with long-lasting musculoskeletal pain experience during NPMP and further transfer into daily life context.

Methods: A phenomenological, descriptive, and retrospective design was applied. Two focus-group interviews were conducted with 11 patients receiving such treatment. The interviews were audiotaped, transcribed, and analysed inspired by Giorgi’s phenomenological methodology.

Results: The analysis resulted in an overarching structure: “To develop embodied ownership of oneself over time”, and two themes describing the essence of change that the patients experienced: (1) “To get an embodied grip on oneself through treatment”; (2) “To give oneself space in daily life”.

Conclusions: Enhanced embodied self-perception involving a sense of embodied ownership and agency seemed to be important both to be aware of own bodily needs and to transfer changes from treatment into daily life.