"Different Conditions Of The Same Disease":Narrative Of Epileptic Illness

Epilepsy is one of the most common serious chronic central nervous system diseases in neurology.Its clinical characteristics are recurrent,unpredictable attacks and long-term side effects of drug treatment,which seriously affect the physical and mental health of patients.Epilepsy patients live in the shadow of epilepsy for a long time.Epilepsy patients labeled as"epilepsy madness" are discriminated against in society and frustrated in life.As a chronic and incurable chronic disease,the pain caused by epilepsy is self-evident.This paper collects the illness stories of ten epileptic patients in hospital D through in-depth interviews and participatory observation,exploring how epileptic patients cope with this daily life disturbed by epilepsy under the conceptual framework of disruption of life process,investigating how epileptic patients understand their illness in life from the past to the future with the description of them.The study concludes that epilepsy brings physical limitations and lack of support network to most patients,threatening their family life and self-identity.However,different patients have diverse understandings and strategies when facing epilepsy,and there are three types of illness lives.They are negative respondents,compliant recipients and positive changers.Studies have found that the degrees of disruption of life processes in epileptic patients is not only related to the severity of the disease,individual willpower,emotional attitudes,but also related to the macro-social background and structure.Finally,based on the conclusions of this study,we provide suggestions on social work services for epileptic patients to construct support network,from the perspectives of doctors and patients,medical social workers and family members,and appeal to medical social workers and relevant policy makers to pay attention to epileptic patients,to help epileptic patients go through the long and painful life better.