Biographical disruption of injured workers in chronic pain

Purpose. This research explored how injured workers living with work-related chronic pain rethink and reconstruct their biographical experience. Method. This qualitative study used a grounded theory approach to data collection and analysis. Semi-structured focus groups were conducted to gather data and analysis was performed by the coding of emergent themes. Results. Analysis of the focus groups revealed the impact that chronic pain has on the social components of an injured worker's life; particularly their sense of self, their relationship to others and how they perceive themselves in social situations. Conclusions. Injured workers experienced changes (physical, psychological and social transformations) that led to biographical disruption; a change in self-identity, which in turn contributed to changes in important relationship dynamics. Injured workers spoke of repeated losses - loss of self, relationships and of the life imagined. Understanding the meaning of these losses could improve the conditions surrounding the injured worker's biographical reconstruction and facilitate the rehabilitation process.