Experiences associated with fibromyalgia as shared by women in digital environments

Abstract

The present study aimed to understand experiences associated with fibromyalgia, especially those emerging in the family context, as shared online by affected patients. To this end, we utilized posts made on internet by this population and used methodological procedures proposed for the development of qualitative research based on the psychoanalytic investigative method through the adoption of digital environments as locus for data collection. The corpus of the present study was composed, in total, of 10 posts, from eight different profiles. The obtained results indicate that the internet users responsible for the selected posts feel that, after the diagnosis, they lost their health completely and, as a result, lost the place they previously occupied in their own family. Evidence was also detected that these internet users tend to conform in the face of the social contestation of which they believe they are victims and that they think they have little or no autonomy to face the limitations caused by the syndrome.