Rebeca Pardo
@uic.es
Dean, Faculty of Communication Sciences
Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (UIC Barcelona)
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Photography, Photojournalism, Visual arts, Autobiography, Illness Visual Narratives, Stigmatization, Autofiction, Medical humanities, Research Integrity, Ethics, Visual representation of pain, illness, death and grief.
Scopus Publications
Scopus Publications
Helena Vall-Roqué, Rubén Nieto, Mayte Serrat, Beatriz Sora, Pau Tolo, Patricia Ureña, Albert Feliu-Soler, Juan V. Luciano, and Rebeca Pardo
Informa UK Limited
We explored the experiences of women with fibromyalgia during the COVID-19 pandemic from a qualitative approach by interviewing eighteen women. We identified seven main themes after performing a thematic analysis: pain description, pain triggers, impact, coping strategies, treatment for pain, pain onset and general situation. In general, pain worsened during the pandemic, and activity restrictions and changes in social interactions were particularly related with that. Pain negatively impacted different life domains: mental health, physical health, cognitive status, social activities and daily activities. Coping strategies varied slightly after the pandemic outbreak, and treatment was interrupted for some women. Results reflect that the pandemic was challenging for women living with fibromyalgia, and highlight the need to develop specific interventions for them in the context of potential future health emergencies.
Rebeca Pardo and Montse Morcate
Ediciones Profesionales de la Informacion SL
The State of Alarm period declared by the Spanish Government due to the coronavirus crisis has had an exhaustive media coverage. However, it is observed how the visual story / narrative that has been published in the newspapers goes beyond the health field, focusing mainly on aspects of a social, political or economic nature. The types of images with the greatest presence in the representation of the harshest weeks of the pandemic determine the type of coverage, causing some relevant aspects to be minimized or invisibilized, and conditions the impact and the understanding of the severity of the disease in the society, in a particularly difficult and decisive moment such as the confinement of citizens. In the same way, the published images will have a later impact as a document by becoming part of the historical memory in the future. This article focuses on the analysis of the images published during the State of Alarm in three of the most relevant and broader scope national newspapers (El país, La vanguardia and El mundo), which is complemented by semi-directed interviews with several photojournalists who have covered Covid-19 during its first stage. The cataloging of the photographs in various categories is intended to observe the type of story that has been made visible of the Covid-19 (assessing the way in which this pandemic is being shown as an epidemic or syndemic), as well as to detect some of the most present and/or recurring visual representations and identify which are the most prominent absences.
Montse Morcate and Rebeca Pardo
Informa UK Limited
Rubén Nieto, Rebeca Pardo, Beatriz Sora, Albert Feliu-Soler, and Juan V. Luciano
MDPI AG
The corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is one of the most important healthcare and societal challenges to have emerged in the last century. It may have effects on both physical and psychosocial health, but studies considering the impact on vulnerable populations, such as people with chronic pain, are needed. In this cross-sectional study, an online survey of relevant chronic pain domains, coping strategies, triggers and potential related variables was answered by 502 Spanish individuals with chronic pain. Participants were mainly women (88%) with longstanding chronic pain and moderate to high pain intensity and disability. The perception of pain aggravation and the most pain-related outcomes were observed. Contextual variables such as job insecurity, worries about the future, people cohabiting, being close to someone who had passed away, or being potentially infected with COVID-19 were related to worse outcomes. More than half the participants altered their pain management style (e.g., increased medication intake) and several changes occurred with respect to pain triggers (cognitions, feelings of insecurity and loneliness, and sleeping problems were more frequently reported as triggers during lockdown). Our preliminary results highlight the negative effects of lockdown on patients with chronic pain as well as the need to make available cost-effective and remotely accessible healthcare resources for counteracting them.
Rebeca Pardo and Montse Morcate
Routledge