The sickle cell illness experience under the qualitative lens

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the content of the qualitative production (2000-2023) on sickle cell disease to support the analytical category - the sickle cell disease experience. Methodologically, we conducted a qualitative, bibliographical study with a thematic content analysis anchored in the dialogue between the revised collection and the adopted theoretical-conceptual references. The thematic content analysis triggered eight interpretative dimensions: daily life and itineraries, care, reproductive decisions, stigma and its expressions, gender, participation, ethnicity, and religiosity. The sickle cell experience emerges and is related to exclusion, devaluation, ignorance, and invisibility, strongly allied to race components in nuances that distance it from the generic illness experience.