sexual and reproductive health

Looking Beyond “Good” and “Bad” Care: Using Feminist Relational Discourse Analysis in the Emergency Department

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Written by Bella van Hattum and Tracy Morison

Photo by Feng Sun on Unsplash

Emergency Departments (EDs) are often the first point of care for people experiencing pain and/or bleeding (a threatened miscarriage) in early pregnancy. Many patients present at the ED not simply with physical symptoms, but also with an emotional emergency that encompasses the fear, uncertainty and moral significance of potential pregnancy loss. Their care needs extend well beyond biomedical assessment. From the perspective of emergency healthcare providers, a threatened miscarriage is generally a low clinical priority, even if a patient shows distress. This mismatch between patient and healthcare provider perspectives can create complex challenges for both parties in systems designed to prioritise acute, life-threatening risk. 

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Complicating Chemsex

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By Siobhán Healy-Cullen and Chris Noone

Image credit: The Andrey Rylkov Foundation 

In recent years, the phenomenon of chemsex, a practice involving the use of drugs to enhance sexual experiences, has become a topic of increasing concern (some would say moral panic; see Hakim, 2019) and research. Traditionally, this practice has been studied through a lens that emphasises potential harm and pathologises those who engage in chemsex. As noted by Møller (2023, p. 922) “chemsex research mostly approaches the phenomenon from the perspective of health, focusing on ‘problematic’ aspects that tend to overstate risks and obscure the complicated role that drugs play in people’s lives”.  However, a more critical perspective is emerging, viewing chemsex participants as valid sexual citizens engaged in a complex socio-cultural landscape.  

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Who Decides Women’s Best Interests? Examining patient-provider power relations in counselling on long-acting reversible contraception

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By Tracy Morison

Image by Pexels

Long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) is widely accepted in most public health and family planning approaches. However, power imbalances between healthcare providers and patients make many women feel as though they are coerced into taking LARC. There is little research that considers the nature and quality of patient-provider interactions, including issues of power and women’s agency, as most scholarship in the field focuses on access. Concerns about the potential for coercion, lack of patient-centeredness, or uncritical LARC promotion are therefore under-explored, especially among ‘high-risk’ women who experience poor health and social outcomes. This study takes a much-needed look at how providers’ perspectives influence their recommendations to patients and the changes that must be implemented to help patients regain autonomy over their reproductive choices.

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What are you doing here? Sexual and reproductive healthcare for people with disabilities

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By Xanthe Hunt, Leslie Swartz, Mark Carew, and Poul Rohleder, April 2021

Few people relish the prospect of using sexual and reprodutive health services. Such encounters can be a bit awkward at best and – at worst – uncomfortable enough to discourage anyone from doing what’s needed to maintain their health and wellbeing. Buying condoms, asking a doctor about contraceptive options, having infections checked out, discussing bleeding or not bleeding, erections or their absence, are difficult for most people.

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