Cultural analysis as a perspective for gender-informed alcohol treatment research in a Swedish context.
OBJECTIVE
An exploratory study to investigate the role of culture in women's drinking at a clinic for women with alcohol problems in a Swedish treatment context.


METHODS
A content analysis of the case journal material of 20 consecutive female patients at the EWA clinic (Early treatment of Women with Alcohol addiction) in Stockholm, Sweden, was conducted using an original instrument informed by the field of cultural psychiatry and emerging from recurrent themes in the case journals.


RESULTS
The patients perceived themselves as having a sub-group status. A trajectory of ritualized actions around drinking, especially private drinking rituals, was identified. Existential components of patients' struggles with addiction in a highly secularized cultural context were identified. Multiple, contradictory explanatory frameworks for understanding drinking problems were creating cognitive dissonance.


CONCLUSIONS
Using cultural analysis as a perspective for gaining gendered information may allow for identifying new patterns within specific cultural and subgroup contexts. It may contribute new information to the following treatment research areas: gender-appropriate measurement issues; service integration; gender-appropriate services for women; and, drinking rituals and patterns.
DeMarinis
Valerie
V
Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden. valerie.demarinis@teol.uu.se
Scheffel-Birath
Christina
C
Hansagi
Helen
H
D000328:Adult; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000628:therapy*; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000628:therapy*; D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000379:methods; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003469:Culture; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D012737:Sex Factors; D013548:Sweden / Q000208:ethnology; D016896:Treatment Outcome