Citation

Cheng YH. Qual. Health Res. 2008; 18(6): 843-852.

Affiliation

Department of Community Medicine and Unit for Behavioral Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, People's Republic of China.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1049732308318037

PMID

18503025

Abstract

In this study, I used a hermeneutic phenomenological approach by means of thematic analysis to examine the lived experiences of hand-injured workers in Hong Kong. Twenty-seven informants with moderate to severe disabilities were interviewed over ten years about how they lived through their disability and their discourses were examined in the cultural context. Three categories (survivors, achievers, strugglers) were synthesized from the informants' life courses. Each category was analyzed under three themes: biographical disruption, working with a disability, and linking family and significant others, but these three categories proved fluid and subject to individual life course and contextual factors. All informants had to work "against the odds." Most returned to work after recovery but some tended to drift within the labor market. Human agency and situated context facilitated achievers to progress through "odds-on chance." Outcome measures of rehabilitative interventions that focus on returning to employment might underestimate the sequelae of being disabled in society.

Language: en