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Abstract

The authors’ aim in this study was to describe the chronic illness experience and its relationship to the concept to finding meaning. They conducted interviews using a narrative approach with 15 adults experiencing various chronic illnesses and analyzed narrative data using a combination of holistic-content and categorical-content approaches. The three major categories were the context of the chronic illness experience, personal reactions, and coping efforts. These categories were best interpreted in terms of a transactional model. The authors categorized finding meaning under cognitive coping strategies and described it as a strategy that was part of a larger coping repertoire.

Keywords

chronic illness coping finding meaning qualitative methods

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An Application of the Transactional Model to the Analysis of Chronic Illness Narratives

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