Experiences of Body Image Changes in Chinese Patients Living with Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Descriptive Qualitative Study

Abstract

Purpose: Body image changes are common among patients living with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) because of the illness and related treatments. Currently, there is little known about how those patients experience and perceive their altered body image in the literature. The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of body image changes in patients with IBD in China and to describe how those changes influence patients' perception of body and self.

Methods: This study used a descriptive qualitative approach. A total of 16 participants from three tertiary hospitals in southeast China were recruited through purposive sampling combined with maximum variation strategy. Data were collected through semistructured interviews and analyzed using conventional content analysis method.

Results: The following six themes were extracted: (1) "being a constrained person," (2) "being a flawed person," (3) "being a disliked person," (4) "being an alienated person," (5) "being a reconciled person," and (6) "being a blessed person."

Conclusion: With the diagnosis of IBD and its side effects of treatments, patients' life changed significantly and they were struggling to reinterpret their body and self. As a result, negative self-evaluations and/or positive self-evaluations towards themselves generated. Further studies are required to explore the underlying mechanism and related influencing factors about how those different images were produced.

Keywords: Crohn disease; body image; inflammatory bowel diseases; qualitative research; ulcerative colitis.