Att hantera tillvaron i den psykiatriska tvångsvården : En dokumentanalys av patienters bloggtexter

Sammanfattning: Psychiatric compulsory care is a complex field. It could be argued that the first and foremost difficulty lies in challenging the autonomy of the patients. The care includes control and restrictions, while simultaneously seeking cooperation and improvement from the patient; creating a very difficult surrounding. Therefore, the aim of this study was to understand how inpatients handled the complex context within the psychiatric compulsory care. Our study was a document analysis, where we analyzed blogs written by current and former inpatients. We analyzed the data using Lazarus theory about how people cope with internal and external stress in difficult situations. Within the theory, a number of different strategies as to how people cope with these situations are described. We identified three main strategies to manage the compulsory care; acceptance, avoidance and making time pass. We also identified unique ways of managing the care; using humor, writing on the blog and viewing the care as separated from their “normal world”. To sum up the main conclusions, we found that coping seemed to be a constantly changing process including different strategies, both emotional and behavioral. Lastly, our study showed that the context a person is in matters; the patients handled the situation with the possibilities within the compulsory care, and also seemed to create their own ways to cope.