The Lived Experience of Genital Warts: The Swedish Example

Abstract

Our aim in this study was to analyze and describe young Swedish women's experiences of living with genital warts. Interviews with 10 young women, aged 16-21 years, were interpreted within a lifeworld hermeneutic tradition. The women experience themselves as victims of a disgusting disease. Furthermore, they appear to disregard the fact that their own lifestyles could be a risk factor for contracting venereal infections. On the other hand they get to know their bodies better after the gynecological examinations where the treatment begins. Their loss of innocence is considerable; thus it seems fair to compare this experience with earlier epochs' ideas about loss of virginity due to the first intercourse. Consequently the young women also start looking at themselves as adults, and they take responsibility for the consequences of their sexuality.

In the heat of the night, it is difficult to get it right—teenagers’ attitudes and values towards sexual risk-taking

“…Previous research show similar results, that teenagers favor their own selfimage and think that it will not happen to them (Birgersson & Norestig, 2005, Hammarlund & Nyströ m, 2004, Tydén, 1996. Skidmore and Hayter (2000) contribute to an interesting discussion where their research shows that young people put themselves in the centre of their own social network.…”

“…One of these factors is a rapid and acute increase in contemporary sexual contacts (Edgardh, 1992;Forsberg, 2005;Helmius, 1998;Jarlbro, 1989), the teenager do not think that they themselves will be infected by a venereal infection (Hammarlund & Nyströ m, 2004;Tydén, 1996) and as this study shows; the fact that the so called one-night-stands often occur under the influence of alcohol.…”

“…For the infected person STI is a physical burden associated with emotional distress (Hammarlund & Nyströ m, 2004;Hammarlund, Lundgren & Nyströ m, 2007). For society, it is an economic burden due to the costs of treatment, sick leave and in some cases hospital care (Mason, 2005;Phillips, Dudgeon, Becker & Bopp, 2004).…”

La experiencia de la persona adulta con la infección por virus del papiloma humano: una revisión panorámica

“…Otra reacción emocional y cognitiva es el shock (Bertram y Magnussen, 2008;Juraskova et al, 2007;Kosenko et al, 2014;Waller et al, 2007), el cual se convierte en miedo al saber que el VPH podía causar verrugas o cáncer (Kosenko et al, 2014). Varias participantes refirieron sentir culpa por las conductas y relaciones sexuales pasadas (Arellano y Castro, 2013;Hammarlund y Nystrom, 2004;León et al, 2016;Monsalve et al, 2015;O'Connor et al, 2016;Wiesner, Acosta, Díaz, Tovar y Salcedo, 2009). Algunas mujeres utilizaron metáforas (relacionar la noticia con la explosión de una bomba o sentirse atrapadas en un laberinto) para expresar la forma cómo se sentían (Braun et al, 2016;Mitchell y Hall, 2009).…”

“…Algunas mujeres expresaron alivio por saber que el VPH era común, que los síntomas no eran físicamente visibles, que el condón no previene de todo el virus y que el virus podía desaparecer de la nada (McCaffery et al, 2006;Waller et al, 2007). Otras impresiones también reportadas fueron enojo (Bertram y Magnussen, 2008;Hammarlund y Nystrom, 2004;Waller et al, 2007;Wiesner et al, 2009), rabia, injusticia (Bertram y Magnussen, 2008), impotencia y humillación (León et al, 2016).…”