Abstract
Every illness tells a story and this study tells the story of low income women with genital herpes. The purpose of this research was to generate a substantive theory about the response of low income women to the critical event of being diagnosed with genital herpes. Data were collected from taped in-depth, interviews from a purposive sample of sixteen (16) low income women who had been diagnosed with genital herpes. Informal interviews were also conducted with five (5) health care providers and several clinic staff members on issues related to stigma and the experience of being diagnosed with genital herpes. All data were analyzed following the ground theory method. Fear emerged as the basic social psychological problem faced by the women participating in this study. Following the critical event of being diagnosed with genital herpes, fear became a persistent part of their daily lives. Types of fear included fear of pain, fear of disclosure and fear of passing it on. For women in the study, fear was mediated by illness severity, pregnancy, relationship stability and remembering herpes. Participants responded to fear through the process of managing fear. The phases of managing fear included: controlling information, controlling herpes, and regaining control. Women in the study controlled information about genital herpes through selective disclosure, distancing and selectively choosing information. The women used body listening, reading the signs, recognizing triggers and tending to herpes as strategies to control herpes. Women who were able to forgive and move on expressed a feeling of having regained control over the fear in their lives. This substantive theory illustrates how low income women with genital herpes struggle day-to-day to manage their fear trajectory. Awareness of this struggle opens the door for the development of nursing interventions that recognize fear as a pervasive problem for low income women with genital herpes.
Sigma Membership
Iota Xi at-Large
Type
Dissertation
Format Type
Text-based Document
Study Design/Type
Grounded Theory
Research Approach
Quantitative Research
Keywords:
Public Health, Low-income Patients, Women's Health Nursing
Advisors
Hutchingson, Sally A.
Advisor
Sally A. Hutchingson
Degree
PhD
Degree Grantor
University of Florida
Degree Year
1998
Recommended Citation
Gordon, Shirley Countryman, "Low-income women with genital herpes: Recognizing and managing their fear trajectory" (2019). Dissertations. 859.
https://www.sigmarepository.org/dissertations/859
Rights Holder
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All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.
All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.
Review Type
None: Degree-based Submission
Acquisition
Proxy-submission
Date of Issue
2019-03-01
Full Text of Presentation
wf_yes
Description
This dissertation has also been disseminated through the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. Dissertation/thesis number: 9919569; ProQuest document ID: 304432748. The author still retains copyright.