Repositori URV

Identifier: TDX:2165

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TDX2165

Authors:
Arenas Paños, Miquel

Abstract:
The aim of this research is to gain insight into the day-to-day experience and management of patients who, immediately after suffering an acute myocardial infarction, enter a cardiac rehabilitation program as a secondary prevention of ischemic heart disease. During this rehabilitation period, the patient’s lifestyle and habits are put into question by recommendations based on health education. Dietary habits, physical activity, smoking or stress take on new meanings when the new regulations question past experiences and cast uncertainty on the patient’s future health and their chances of resuming previous activities, especially in the workplace. This research also projects a critical look on hospital care in general and on common practice within these programs. It contains a proposal for change in the perspective of professional care and therapist-patient relationship. Ethnographic research has spanned for a period of ten years (2005-2015), including qualitative methodology participant observation and interviews to twenty-three outpatients and health professionals. This study presents the particularity of considering literary fictions as a knowledge source, in conjunction with the theoretical framework of social sciences.