Exploring the impact of stressful life events on quality of life: meaning making and narrative reconstruction

ABSTRACT

Purpose

Stressful life events have the capacity to disrupt an individual’s worldview and life goals, leading to existential questions and identity loss. The subjective perception of identity is intricately linked with quality of life (QoL), and how individuals derive meaning from these stressful life events significantly influences their well-being. This article explored the impact of stressful life events on individuals’ QoL, and examined the potential for enhancing QoL through meaning making and narrative reconstruction.

Methods

Qualitative interviews were conducted with 11 individuals reporting diminished QoL and analysed using thematic analysis.

Results

The study reveals that stressful life events confront interviewees with the vulnerability of their values in life and the limits of their control, leading them to question their own beliefs and purpose in life. Consequently, these events prompt individuals to reconstruction their narratives to adapt to new life circumstances.

Conclusions

The study suggests that “securing the base,” including strong social relations and security in economic and housing conditions, is a prerequisite for enhancing QoL. The insights on “the base” have profound implications for QoL. Recognizing their fundamental importance, policymakers, healthcare professionals, and social service providers can support mechanisms to enhance these foundations, improving overall well-being for individuals and communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Identity
• narrative meaning making
• quality of life
• self-efficacy
• stressful life events

Acknowledgments

The authors are thankful to the participants of this study for openly sharing their experiences.

Data availability statement

The participants of this study did not give written consent for their data to be shared publicly, so due to the sensitive nature of the research supporting data is not available.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Faaborg-Midtfyns Kommune.

Notes on contributors

Lotte Kring

Lotte Kring is a PhD student at the Department of Psychology, University of Southern Denmark. She has a background in medical anthropology and has a specific interest in exploring the experiences of patients and their relatives within the field of psychiatry, as well as examining how mental disorders influence their daily lives.

Evald Iversen

Evald Iversen is Head of the Centre for Research in Sports, Health and Civil Society. His research in recent years have focused on volunteers and the more general role of the organized civil society. He has analyzed how appropriate interaction can be established between volunteers and municipalities, and what importance civil society may have for the development of society. Particularly, he has worked on projects which focus on how the interaction between on the one side volunteers and on the other side public welfare institutions such as schools might be improved with a specific focus on the influence of civil society on the quality of life of citizens. His work on the topic has increased the understanding of how organized civil society may be included in collaborative processes between civil society and the public sector.

Bjarne Ibsen

Bjarne Ibsen For many years, has, among other things, researched various aspects of civil society with particular interest in the development and social role of associations, the relationship between the voluntary and the public sector, and the importance of civil engagement for citizens’ quality of life. He has, among other things, edited the book ‘Voluntary and Public Sector Collaboration in Scandinavia’, which was published in 2021 by the publisher Palgrave Macmillan.

Michael Fehsenfeld

Michael Fehsenfeld has a background in anthropology and has a specialist interest in social inequality in health and vulnerable people. He has published widely on the topic and has many years of experience of working with vulnerable people in community settings.