Theme 4: “Striving to adapt”
| Adjustment to life with severe asthma | |
| Good adjustment | “Asthma doesn't dominate my lifestyle. It's part of who I am.” (Paul, male, 62 years) |
| Poor adjustment | “[It's] crap [sic] … [asthma] affects every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year of my life.” (Stephanie, female, 38 years) |
| Positive coping strategies | |
| Acquiring self-management skills | “It wasn't really until I had a full asthma plan working closely with a specialist, which is now many years ago, that I was actually able to get all those things under control.” (Paul, male, 62 years) |
| Managing emotional problems | “Stop wallowing in self-pity basically … Try and camouflage it with something else … Like I might go out. Get out and walk the streets, and look in shop windows.” (Larry, male, 54 years) |
| Switching to doable activities | “I do exercise with people who know my limitations and they don't care if I stop or whatever … Yeah, I don't make myself do [things] that make me really wheezy … I just don't put myself with those people that run their 42 km marathon because I know I couldn't do something like that.” (Cheryl, female, 53 years) |
| Negative coping strategies | |
| Pushing through | “Being in a state where I probably should've been in hospital because my lung function was that bad … having to get it done [at work] because the guy standing next to you is perfectly healthy … and you've got to keep up with him.” (Larry, male, 54 years) |
| Risk aversion/exertion restriction | “Like this morning I had to go to the eye specialist … which is not far, over the road actually. I thought ‘Will I walk? No I'll drive because I might get out of breath’.” (Gloria, female, 81 years) |
| Vigilant monitoring of symptoms | “I am so in control of my asthma now. I do not let myself have an attack. If I get the slightest inkling that something's happening, I am onto that nebuliser like you wouldn't believe!” (Jacinta, female, 63 years) |
| Childhood experiences | “I avoid doctors like the plague. Because I've seen so many of them I guess. When I was a kid, every time I saw a doctor they'd whack me in hospital. So maybe that's got something to do with it.” (Jacinta, female, 63 years) |