Monday, March 18, 2013
‘‘I Know This Is Bad for Me, But.. .’’
A Qualitative Investigation of Women With Irritable Bowel Syndrome(IBS) and Inflammatory Bowel Disease(IBD): Part II
a link to the article
This week I will be summarizing a qualitative analysis the various detrimental behaviors of women with IBD and IBS. It is first important to note that while IBD and IBS have very similar symptoms they are different conditions. Patients with IBD experience alterations to their digestive tracts while those with IBS do not. This is important because the alterations that occur can increase a person's chances of developing colorectal cancer.
With this understanding this study examined the possibly detrimental behaviors of eight women from Ontario, Canada. The study included the analysis of a background questionnaire, a 14 day food diary, and semi-structured interview for each subject. The goal of the paper was to look into how women with IBS or IBD deal with the condition, specifically looking at possibly detrimental behaviors that they engaged in.
Each of the women involved expressed the feeling that they were controlled by their digestive tract. In order to deal with this the women often engaged in food restriction or the use of medication in order to decrease the likelihood that would experience symptoms. One interesting finding was that many of the women would take medication preemptively in order to be able to eat one of their trigger foods. The participant expressed their wanting to be "normal" and not have IBS of IBD. This is both an interesting and logical feeling for these women. Of course they would want to be able to eat or drink whatever they want and not have to worry about experiencing symptoms which are often times embarrassing and extremely uncomfortable.
From this article the diagnosis of IBS or IBD is portrayed as life changing. The process is frustrating and those with these conditions are often not compliant with treatment for various reasons. The question is how can the health care providers make dealing with this disease easier?
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Very nice post Julia. I liked how you distinguished between IBD and IBS because I feel like its one of those times where people, particularly those with little or no experience with either or the two, make the mistake of using them interchangeably.
ReplyDeleteYou're totally right that its hard to make life style changes such as these like we saw earli in the semester when we talked about gastric bypass and lap band surgeries it's not exactly easy to just cut things (particularly things like food which we enjoy) out of our life all together. Maybe if health care providers came up with some sort of meal supplement or daily vitamin which could help with these symptoms but had longer lasting affects or maybe even a once a week sort of thing people would be more inclined to make use of it.
I also wonder if the situation is any different when looking at males with these symptoms. Do you think there's a difference in male vs female as far as self control goes when dieting is concerned particularly in situations involving IBD or IBS?
Good job on your post!
Exactly what Cassie said, it was important to clarify IBD from IBS. Like the general public, I was unaware of the differences of each before I actually read the article.
ReplyDeleteAddressing the male vs. female debate, I think that the symptoms of IBD differ greatly between patients regardless of their sex. Everybody is different and therefore, react differently to certain stimuli. One female may be able to control a certain symptom better than a male and vice versa. IBD seems to be extremely taxing on suffering individuals because it requires a lifetime of care. Not being able to eat certain 'trigger foods' and enjoy yourself with friends can be mentally exhausting as seen in the posted article. The revolving theme with IBD seems to be that until the underlying mechanism and safe interventions are discovered, suffering individuals will continue to face hardship. Nevertheless, I wonder if indirect forms of therapy such as frequent meetings with a counselor/psychologist would help suffering individuals? Because there is no trustworthy intervention that completely cures individuals of IBD, learning how to cope with their pathology may be the next best thing.
I agree with Andrew; I think that it's extremely important for IBD patients to be educated on their condition whether it's through meetings with a physician or other support groups. I read somewhere that the onset of Crohn's Disease is most common in adults age 35 and under, and that's frightening to me. In Julia's article, we read about eight young women diagnosed with IBD or IBS. Hearing about the woes of these women and how some of them felt that they had to fight IBD completely on their own is pretty scary. You begin to realize how many people aren't informed and how much they don't know their own conditions. Many of us as science/health majors are blessed with health education in school and in the community. However, I can't help but think that those outside of the world of health would feel very alone and confused if they were put in such unfamiliar situations.
ReplyDeleteI think the reason why healthcare is facing so many problems is because no one can find a solid solution to Julia's question. How can healthcare providers help in this case? There are patients that don't get the attention that they deserve, but physicians often don't have the time to devote to those who are diagnosed with a serious disease, such as IBD. This article is really eye-opening to those who are going into medicine or are already active in the field. How are we going to improve patient care and what will the sacrifices be?
Reading how each of these women in their own personal ways dealt with their IBS or IBD, it made me think about the idea behind patient compliance. Sure, we can have physicians reach out to patients more and be more understanding, but at the end of the day, it's what the person goes home and does for themselves. We ourselves go to the doctor's office and we get a bunch of recommendations of what we should be doing, but how much of that do we actually go home and accomplish? This could be relatable to something simple, such as more exercise and eating fruits and vegetables.
ReplyDeleteLiving with a disease or any kind of disorder makes it even harder. In addition to living a healthy lifestyle, you have to do extra things to manage something like IBD. Some of the women didn't take Metamucil as preventative medication, just because they didn't deem it as necessary. They made their own judgement on that matter and this is just something a health professional can not prevent.
Chronic diseases like Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis are inconvenient and unfortunate to have, especially at a young age of 18-23. Since there are no absolute cure for these diseases, I think that health care providers will be limited to how much help they can give, but just because it is limited, it does not mean that they should not try at all.
ReplyDeleteA big part that health care providers should be able to do it to be able to talk to their patients in a deeper level. The participants share frustration about this disease, and the last thing that they should encounter is a snobby physician.
As a health care provider, these patients should be able to express their worries. The participants showed that they were conscious about it, and they should have a physician that is willing to hear about their concerns.
It is not enough as a provider to hand out prescriptions for the pain and discomfort. A more psychological factor plays a role as we read from the article, and physicians should be able to address these psychological factors that causes distress. It may not be as severe as terminal cancer, but it is hard to live a normal life knowing that at any time, there might be a flare up in the GI tract. I think that this is one of the most important part of treating someone with this kind of disease, and that is to help the patient with the worrying and the psychological disturbances that they are personally encountering.
I completely agree with all the comments that have been posted thus far. First of all, I think it is extremely difficult for young women, especially in their early twenties and still in college, to have to deal with this sort of disease every day. I can’t imagine what they have to go through each day and how they feel around their peers when their symptoms act up during class. I feel that this type of disease would affect females more emotionally and psychologically as oppose to males. To be blunt, females are definitely more embarrassed and ashamed of expressing any sort of bowls movements and certain symptoms that goes along with IBD and IBS. The expression of this sort of bowl activity is less significant for males and thus would experience an easier time and less stress dealing with this disease. On the other, the fact that both sex have to stay clear of trigger foods that they enjoy would have to be one of the hardest aspect of this disease. The level of self control they need to have would be exponential. I think both parties would experience a similar of hardness practicing self control in regards to their trigger foods. It depends on each individual and their love for the food they can’t consume. It is very similar to a person’s tolerance level for pain. Some people can with stand more than others. I don’t think it is possible to distinguish which sex would express more or less self control because each person is different whether a male or female.
ReplyDelete