Elizabeth Peel

Taking the biscuit? A discursive approach to managing diet in type 2 diabetes

Adopting and maintaining a healthy diet is pivotal to diabetic regimens. Behavioural research has focused on strategies to modify/maintain healthy behaviours; thus ‘compliance’ and ‘ noncompliance’ are operationalized by researchers. In contrast, discursive psychology focuses on the actions different accounts accomplish—in this case regarding diets. Using thematic discourse analysis, we examine dietary management talk in repeat-interviews with 40 newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes patients. Women in our study tended to construct dietary practices as an individual concern, while men presented food consumption as a family matter. Participants accounted for ‘cheating’ in complex ways that aim to accomplish, for instance, a compliant identity. Discursive psychology may facilitate fluidity in our understandings of dietary management, and challenge fixed notions of ‘compliant’ and ‘non-compliant’ diabetes patients.

“It’s No Skin off My Nose”: Why People Take Part in Qualitative Research

In this article, the authors analyze participants’ accounts of why they took part in a repeat-interview study exploring newly diagnosed patients’ perceptions of diabetes service provision in Lothian, Scotland. The study involved three semistructured in-depth interviews with each patient (N = 40), which spanned a year. The authors provide a thematic discursive analysis of responses to the question, Can I ask you what made you decide to part in the study and why you’ve stayed involved over the past year? The main themes are (a) recruitment within health contexts (“the nurse said it would help”), (b) altruism (“if it can help somebody”), (c) qualitative research being seen as inherently innocuous (“nothing to lose”), and (d) therapeutic aspects of interviewing (“getting it off my chest”). The analysis contributes both to the qualitative literature about generic research participation and to a germinal literature exploring qualitative health research participation.

Diabetes Service Provision: a Qualitative Study of Newly Diagnosed Type 2 Diabetes Patients' Experiences and Views

Aims  To explore newly diagnosed Type 2 diabetes patients’ views about Scottish diabetes services at a time when these services are undergoing a major reorganization. To provide recommendations to maximize opportunities brought by the devolvement of services from secondary to primary healthcare settings.

Lesbian and Gay Psychology

H. Besner and C. Spungin: Gay and Lesbian Students . Bristol, PA: Taylor & Francis, 1995. 174pp.

Patients' Perceptions and Experiences of Taking Oral Glucose-Lowering Agents: a Longitudinal Qualitative Study

17.95, ISBN 1–56032–337 (pbk). M. Hall: The Lesbian Love Companion . San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins, 1998. 223pp.

Chronic Illness in Non-heterosexual Contexts: An Online Survey of Experiences

15.00, ISBN 0–06–251431–8 (pbk). A. Stein: Sex and Sensibility: Stories of a Lesbian Generation . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. 256 pp.

‘Urine testing is a waste of time’: newly diagnosed Type 2 diabetes patients’ perceptions of self-monitoring

13.95, ISBN 0–520–20674–6 (pbk). P. Stern (ed.): Lesbian Health: What are the Issues? Bristol, PA: Taylor & Francis, 1993. 256 pp. £14.00, ISBN 1–56032–299–3 (pbk). J. Weinstock and E. Rothblum (eds): Lesbian Friendships: For Ourselves and Each Other . New York: New York University Press, 1996. 310 pp.

Online Interviewing in Psychology: Reflections on the Process

18.95, ISBN 0–8147–7473–3 (pbk). K. Weston: Longslowburn: Sexuality and Social Science . New York: Routledge, 1998. 265 pp. £12.99, ISBN 0–415–92044–2 (pbk).

Pregnancy loss in lesbian and bisexual women: an online survey of experiences

Aims  The aims of this study were to examine Type 2 diabetic patients’ expectations, perceptions and experiences of oral glucose‐lowering agents (OGLAs), including their reasons for taking/not taking these drugs as prescribed and to provide recommendations for developing interventions to improve OGLA adherence.

‘It’s a huge maze, the system, it’s a terrible maze’: Dementia carers’ constructions of navigating health and social care services

In this article we contribute to the expansion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) health psychology beyond the confines of sexual health by examining the experiences of lesbian, gay and bisexual people living with non-HIV related chronic illness. Using a (predominantly) qualitative online survey, the perspectives of 190 LGB people with 52 different chronic illnesses from eight countries were collected. The five most commonly reported physical conditions were arthritis, hypertension, diabetes, asthma and chronic fatigue syndrome. Our analysis focuses on four themes within participants’ written comments: (1) ableism within LGBT communities; (2) isolation from LGBT communities and other LGB people living with chronic illness; (3) heteronormativity within sources of information and support and; (4) homophobia from healthcare professionals. We conclude by suggesting that LGBTQ psychology could usefully draw on critical health psychology principles and frameworks to explore non-heterosexual’s lived experiences of chronic illness, and also that there remains a need for specifically targeted support groups and services for LGB people with chronic illnesses.