DOCTORS ATTITUDES TO FIBROMYALGIA - A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY

Besides specific technical skills, successful encounters with patients require an understanding of the many ways in which patients may expre ss themselves. This qualitative study reports on the clinical experien ces of doctors when meeting patients with fibromyalgia (FM). Ten strat egically chosen rheumatologists and 10 GPs in central Sweden were inte rviewed. The interviews were taped, transcribed and analysed in accord ance with the empirical, phenomenological, psychological method. The a nalyses indicate that doctors try to comply with the wishes and demand s of patients, and at the same time avoid perceptions of personal frus tration. They are inclined to be objective and to act instrumentally, apparently in order to keep in touch with what gave biomedical meaning to an otherwise incomprehensible phenomenon. The meaning structures r evealed by doctors' descriptions of FM and of relating to FM patients were characterized mainly by the way in which the doctors were (i) man aging their clinical uncertainty, (ii) adhering to the biomedical para digm, (iii) prioritizing diagnostics, (iv) establishing an instrumenta l relationship, and (v) avoiding recognizing FM as a possible biomedic al anomaly.