‘To more than I can be’: A phenomenological meta-ethnography of singing groups for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Yoeli, Heather; Macnaughton, Jane

doi:10.1177/1363459320978520

‘To more than I can be’: A phenomenological meta-ethnography of singing groups for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Yoeli, Heather; Macnaughton, Jane

Authors

Heather Yoeli

Professor Jane Macnaughton jane.macnaughton@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Abstract

Anecdotal experience and qualitative accounts suggest that singing groups, classes or choirs specifically for people with COPD (henceforth referred to as COPD-SGs) are effective in improving health. However, this is not reflected in the quantitative evidence. This meta-ethnography deployed phenomenological methods to explore this discrepancy. Analysis identified the phenomena of being together, being uplifted and being involved as central benefits of COPD-SGs. When viewed through the phenomenological lens of body-social as distinct from body-subject and body-object, findings demonstrated that the qualitative effectiveness of COPD-SGs is greatest on a collective basis. Qualitative research into the effectiveness of COPD-SGs offers more favourable results because phenomenological approaches can identify collective benefits that quantitative methods cannot. COPD-SGs should seek to maximise these collective benefits by rediscovering their cultural and artistic heritage within the national and global Arts in Health (AiH) movement, which has long emphasised the radical creative and healing power of group activity.

Citation

Yoeli, H., & Macnaughton, J. (2021). ‘To more than I can be’: A phenomenological meta-ethnography of singing groups for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine, 25(5), 574-595. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363459320978520

Journal Article Type	Article
Online Publication Date	Dec 15, 2020
Publication Date	Sep 1, 2021
Deposit Date	Jan 11, 2021
Publicly Available Date	Nov 10, 2021
Journal	Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine
Print ISSN	1363-4593
Electronic ISSN	1461-7196
Publisher	SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	25
Issue	5
Pages	574-595
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1177/1363459320978520

Files

Published Journal Article (1.4 Mb)
PDF

Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).