The Medical Journey and User Experiences of Sleeping Pill Users
Date Issued
2011
Date
2011
Author(s)
Wu, Hsiao-Chu
Abstract
In Taiwan, it seems that more and more people taking sleeping pills. Related researches of the issue are about drug policy and medicine with little attention to actual sleeping pills users. Most of the time, the answers to “Why do they take pills” are personal. Somehow, Sociology gives a different explanation: social context. This research tries to unveil the invisible factors. By semi-structured interviewing 21 users, I try to picture the actual experience of sleeping pill users for three stages: their entering in Western medicine and using drugs, their doctor-patient interaction, and how their collected experiences become their own knowledge and resources.
First, institutional sleep is the main reason for insomnia sufferers to ask for help. The medicalization of sleep provides a framework for them to check insomnia problems. Because of the affinity of social network, institutions and generational traits, makes Western medicine a choice for solution. After their entering into medicine, for institutional reasons doctors in Taiwan inclined to prescribe sleeping pills.
Second, after these people choose medical solutions, they face different kinds of doctors and have various doctor-patient relationship experiences. The kinds of relationship have direct or indirect influences on the image of how they see themselves, the modes how they take pills.
Last, as patients have become more experienced, they are more knowledgeable and reflecsive users about the pills and aware of themselves. The internet group works as a platform for patients/users share and help to produce a collective, more sophisticated discourse of using drugs and “drug identification.”
Subjects
sleeping pill
doctor-patient relationship
user experience
Type
thesis
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