title: [Lay and medical conceptions of headache and migraine : Investigation of members of blue collar and service professions].
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Every professional segment has its own typical forms of stress, which for members result in patterns of bodily conception and interpretation of pain. The way individuals cope with these typical forms of pain reflects their social identity, social status and group membership. In this study pain was investigated from a sociological perspective as a medium contributing to socialization processes in stress collectives.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  Cultural conceptions of headache and migraine were investigated in members of blue collar occupations, in service professions and patients in specialized medical pain care.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this study 49 qualitative biographical interviews were conducted with patients suffering from headache and migraine. The study population included persons from the general outpatient population and patients recruited from specialized inpatient pain clinics.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Members of blue collar occupations with specific body-oriented, mechanical stress patterns and dominant masculine attitudes, perceived headache and migraine as atypical deviations, which are contextualized as body pain. Professionals in the service sector with specific communicative-emotional work patterns perceived headache and migraine as typical and accepted deviations. Both pain conceptions represent dominant body norms and social commitments in each group; however, in specialized pain care these everyday concepts are transformed by increasing expert knowledge resulting in medicalized life styles and in identity conceptions conforming to the medical imperative.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The success of specialized treatment of headache depends to a certain extent on the ability of patients to impose a medically regulated life style on their significant others; however, this can conflict with the demands of everyday life.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Sozialwesen, Universität Kassel, Arnold-Bode-Straße 10, 34127, Kassel, Deutschland. s.dresske@googlemail.com.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dreßke
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D020773:Headache Disorders / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans; D055809:Illness Behavior; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D008019:Life Style; D008297:Male; D062528:Medicalization; D008875:Middle Aged; D008881:Migraine Disorders / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D019222:Mind-Body Relations, Metaphysical; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D018710:Pain Clinics; D017288:Pain Threshold / Q000523:psychology; D011602:Psychophysiologic Disorders / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D012649:Self Concept; D012931:Social Environment; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000150:complications* / Q000523:psychology*
keywords: Interviews; Medical sociology; Migraine disorders; Pain threshold; Social environment