Chronic pain

Everyone sometimes feels pain. Chronic pain, however, is different. It does not vanish for weeks, months, or even years but, unlike acute pain, has lost its warning function.

In this section you can find out how people live with chronic pain. In short videos, they tell their personal stories. For example, they talk about their treatments, how they cope with their pain in everyday life, where they find help or how their lives have changed since they had been diagnosed.

If you have a story you would like to share, please do get in touch with us.

  • Credits

    Researchers

    Bettina Schwind

    Bettina Schwind joined the DIPEx Switzerland team at the Institute for Biomedical Ethics and History of Medicine (IBME) in 2019 and is implementing the module “chronic pain”. The module explores the question of how people with chronic pain experience their everyday life and the Swiss health and social system. She also coordinates the MAS in Insurance Medicine at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute and teaches on topics such as qualitative social research and gender and health. In her dissertation, which she completed in 2016, she researched different gynaecological care settings in Switzerland using a medical sociological approach with a gender perspective. Since then, she has specifically expanded her research skills to include participatory research approaches as well as migration and diversity in health care, also in various applied research and evaluation projects.

    Martina Andrea Hodel

    Martina Hodel obtained a Master’s degree in clinical psychology in 2015 from the Universities of Zurich and Humboldt (Berlin). After graduating as a clinical psychologist, she completed her PhD at the Institute of Biomedical Ethics and History of Medicine in 2018. In her dissertation, she was concerned with ethical aspects in the treatment of patients with severe and persistent mental illness. Martina is on board of DIPEx since the very beginning, currently conducting interviews for several modules. In addition, she is in charge of coordinating the Chronic Pain module. Martina also works as a clinical psychologist on an acute psychiatric ward.

    Joel Strassberg

    Joel Strassberg attends the Master’s program in philosophy and german language and literature at the University of Zurich. During his studies he focused mainly on the different intersections of these subjects, like narrative theory, philosophy of language, and discourse linguistics and analysis. Together with DIPEx.ch he’s currently working on his Master’s thesis about metacommunication in illness narratives of patients with chronic pain under the perspective of narration and conversation analysis.

    Advisory panel

  • Help & Support

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