Women's recovery, negotiation of appearance, and social reintegration following a burn.

Abstract

The gendered nature of postburn coping has received scant research attention in South Africa, a country that has a high rate of burns with significant concentrations among women. In this study, narratives that emerged from in-depth interviews with seven women were examined. The narratives emphasized essential needs of these burn survivors for personal support, the complexities of negotiating intimate relationships, struggles with the humiliation from family and friends, in some instances strained relationships with children, the support found through religious beliefs and institutions, and often frustratingly slow psychological acceptance of scars. These difficulties faced by women survivors of burns have highlighted the need to include religion/spirituality, intimate male partners, and women's children into the psychological recovery process, in an attempt to assist women's journey to psychological and emotional healing after burn.