Objective: The aim of this study was to identify and describe endometriosis healthcare experiences based on affected individuals' blog posts.Background: Endometriosis is a chronic gynaecological disease that often has a negative effect on mental, physical, sexual and social health, resulting in lower quality of life. Endometriosis healthcare experiences have typically been described in terms of normalisation, trivialisation and a lack of knowledge from healthcare professionals. These experiences are often reported via individual interviews or focus group interviews. Studying internet blogs may contribute additional information that might not be disclosed during interviews. Therefore, observing and analysing content from blog posts may present an opportunity to gain additional understanding of how healthcare encounters can be experienced by individuals with endometriosis. Study design and methods:This is an inductive qualitative study based on blog posts. The blog posts were written in Swedish and posted online without passwords. Sixteen blogs written between 2008 and 2019 by people aged 22-34 were included.The bloggers had been diagnosed with endometriosis one to seven years prior to writing the blogs and lived all over Sweden. Data collection was performed in March 2019 using an online search engine. A combination of different research terms was used to find the blogs. After considering the blogs on the basis of inclusion and exclusion criteria, 12 blogs remained, and another four blogs were included via links from one of the blogs. The analysis was conducted using thematic analysis according to Braun and Clarke. Results:The results are presented under one main theme, "A protracted struggle", and two subthemes, "The response plays a significant role" and "The value of competence". The bloggers described their healthcare experiences as a long struggle including contact with a large number of different healthcare professionals (HCPs), where the response was significant for their physical and mental health. They emphasised the advantages of personcentredness, competence and continuity in the HCP contact.
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