Dissertation Grant: Rhetoric of Quantification in the Context of Chronic Pain

George Mason University, Fairfax VA

Investigators

Abstract

This award supports a doctoral dissertation research project that studies persons with chronic pain. Specifically, the researcher proposes to interview 30 persons with chronic pain who are over 18 and have experienced pain persistently or intermittently for at least three months prior to recruitment. She will conduct 30-60 minute phone interviews, asking open-ended questions about the pain experiences of participants including being in pain, living with pain, and communicating about pain. She will then conduct a rhetorical analysis of interview transcripts for references to quantified information, such as quantified time, quantified medicine, and quantified expenses. The researchers will also identify and analyze other potential trends in how persons with chronic pain describe rhetorical tactics when communicating about their chronic pain. Using rhetorical analysis will allow the researchers to identify persuasive or argumentative strategies or tactics in language use about chronic pain, as described by the people living with and experiencing chronic pain. The researcher will work with regional and national patient advocacy groups and national and international professional associations dedicated to pain treatment. She will develop and disseminate a list of actionable recommendations in a variety of forms, including an accessible one-page overview, invited presentations, and peer-reviewed publication in medical journals. Her overarching goal is to help both persons with chronic pain and the people who communicate with them (including health care providers, caregivers, and loved ones) understand the rhetorical tools and strategies available to persons with chronic pain to articulate their experiences, so that this enhanced understanding might mitigate instances of stigmatization. This project is an ethnographic study of persons with chronic pain. Between 10% and 30% of the U.S. population lives with chronic pain, and the vast majority of this population reports suffering from undertreated pain, which is further exacerbated by the stigmatization of using drugs and living with physical disability. Given the prevalence, undertreatment, and stigmatization associated with chronic pain, this project seeks to determine whether there is a rhetorical tool or strategy available to persons with chronic pain to help articulate and legitimize their pain experiences for different audiences and stakeholders (health care providers, caregivers, etc.). Anthropologists, philosophers, and bioethicists argue that this stigmatization exists, in part, because pain experience is inherently subjective and cannot be quantitatively measured. Yet, both patients and physicians are accustomed to associating medical practice with objectivity, which is in turn associated with numerical quantification. Although quantifiable information is subject to interpretation, it is because of the overwhelming persuasiveness of quantification in medical and scientific contexts in the United States that the researchers propose to investigate whether a rhetoric of quantification can benefit chronic pain patients seeking legitimization and trust in their articulations of their pain experiences. The findings of this research can advance knowledge about the persuasiveness of quantification as a rhetorical device and further enhance understanding of how objective and subjective knowledge is created, valued, and communicated in U.S. culture, particularly in the context of human health and medicine. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.