Browsing by Author "Hagen, Julia"

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Meaning-making and health
(Health Behavior and Environmental Health. Springer, 2024-08-19) Knizek, Birthe Loa; Hagen, Julia; Hjelmeland, Heidi; Mugisha, James
During the last decades, meaning-making has come into focus as a valuable resource for health. Through life, a person might face different challenges such as bereavement, loss of abilities, and unemployment, among others, and the ability to cope with these is decisive for the person’s health and well-being. Making-meaning is a way of coping with difficult situations and can enhance a healing process of the biopsychosocial individual. As nobody lives in a vacuum, meaning-making is dependent on the cultural, social, and relationship context of a person and is an ever-ongoing process as both the individual, the context, and the interaction with the environment are constantly changing. This chapter discusses different models of meaning-making and provides examples of how they work in suicidality, illness, and loss. On this background, the chapter presents a new way of approaching individuals in difficult situations: the power threat meaning framework (PTMF). PTMF was developed as an alternative to diagnostic and medicalized thinking to provide a more contextual understanding of various challenges, emotional distress, and unusual or troubling behavior. The PTMF also offers practical guidance, which is presented briefly.
“When you are alone you have a narrow mind, but when you are with others you think broader into the other aspects”. A qualitative study on the role of sense of belonging and mattering in attempted suicide in Uganda
(International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being, 2024-11-02) Knizek, Birthe Loa; Mugisha, James; Kinyanda, Eugene; Hagen, Julia; Hjelmeland, Heidi
Introduction: Suicide is globally a severe problem with an estimated 700.000 deaths annually. Six of the 10 countries with the highest suicide rates worldwide are in Africa, though, reliable statistics are scarce. Method: In this qualitative interview study in Uganda, we analysed the stories of 16 people admitted to hospital following a serious suicide attempt. We focussed especially on each person’s decision process towards their resolution to attempt suicide. Findings: Despite the huge heterogeneity of the narratives, we could identify problems regarding the sense of belonging and mattering in all the stories. Both the sense of belonging and mattering have been related to suicidal behaviour in earlier theories, but they were never studied together or under consideration of the influence of this specific cultural context. We found that the participants’ sense of belonging and mattering to a large degree was influenced by their traditional communalistic context with a worldview where the line between the natural and spiritual world was blurry. Conclusion: This kind of knowledge could be a valuable source for health professionals in their treatment of suicidal persons; it could direct their approach to the core of each person’s relational problems and meaning-making, which is crucial for their decisions with regard to suicide.