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Self-experience of adolescents with Tourette syndrome during peer interaction: Giorgi's phenomenological method

Background:The most common symptoms of Tourette syndrome (TS) are chronic neuropsychiatric disorders taking place during childhood. During peer interaction, adolescents with TS will endow symbolic meaning to the onset of tics on their own. Therefore, adolescents with TS face social problems and difficulties, which affect their self-opinions and self-identities. Objective:To investigate the essential structure of lived experience in self-experience of adolescents with TS during peer interaction. Methods:This study used Giorgi's phenomenological method. A total of twelve adolescents with Tourette syndrome from Taiwan Tourette Family Association, aged 12–18 years old, without known psychiatric or developmental disorders, were selected by purposive sampling. Lincoln and Guba's trustworthiness criteria were employed to evaluate methodological rigor. Results:Three themes were finally generated: the sudden onset of tics during encounters with people, inspires the courage of self-acceptance and strategies of self-protection to respond to the encounter. Peers are significant others during this development process. Adolescents obtain self-identity through role playing, learning and imitating significant others, and by obtaining the responses of peers to themselves. On the contrary, when peers do not accept tics, the self-identity process of adolescents may be vague, and adolescents may face the crisis of confusion about self-development. Discussion:The results showed that the self-experience of adolescents with TS during peer interaction reflect their lived experiences of peer identity, social identity and self-identity. It is a dynamic process where peers and the symbolic meaning of the tics as endowed by adolescents themselves interact with each other. Conclusion:The research results can be provided for medical and nursing personnel, parents and families, school teachers, peers, and the general public to understand the empirical self-experience of adolescents with TS during peer interaction, which may be significantly beneficial to the development of future consultation of peer relationship and intervention for adolescents with TS and help improve care quality.