Rehabilitation Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
PLoS One. 2024 May 8;19(5):e0302443. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0302443. eCollection 2024.
Brain fog is a phenomenon that is frequently reported by persons with chronic pain. Difficulties with cognition including memory impairments, attentional issues, and cloudiness are commonly described. The current medical literature demonstrates a similar cloudiness: there is no clear taxonomy or nomenclature, no well-validated evaluations and a dearth of effective interventions. To focus our understanding of this complex phenomenon, we will perform a discourse analysis to explore how brain fog is described in public posts on social media. Discursive methodology will generate insights regarding the societal understanding and meanings attributed to brain fog, by sampling perspectives of persons with lived experience, currently underrepresented in the medical literature. It is anticipated that the results of the proposed study will 1) help healthcare professionals better understand the experience of chronic pain-related brain fog and 2) generate hypotheses for future research. To conclude, by incorporating innovative and contemporary methods, this proposed discourse analysis of social media sources will generate nuanced insights, bridging the gap between researchers, health care providers, and persons with lived experience.
脑雾是慢性疼痛患者经常报告的一种现象。常描述认知困难，包括记忆障碍、注意力问题和思维模糊。目前的医学文献也存在类似的模糊性：没有明确的分类或命名法，没有经过充分验证的评估方法，也缺乏有效的干预措施。为了深入了解这种复杂现象，我们将进行话语分析，以探讨脑雾在社交媒体上的公开帖子中是如何描述的。话语方法将通过抽样具有生活体验的人的观点来产生关于脑雾的社会理解和归因意义的见解，而这些人在医学文献中目前代表性不足。预计拟议研究的结果将 1）帮助医疗保健专业人员更好地理解与慢性疼痛相关的脑雾的体验，2）为未来的研究提出假设。总之，通过采用创新和现代方法，对社交媒体来源的这种话语分析将产生细微的见解，弥合研究人员、医疗保健提供者和具有生活体验的人之间的差距。
