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Colostomy may offer hope in improving quality of life: a phenomenological qualitative study with patients dependent on a wheelchair

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Abstract

Purpose

This study aimed to evaluate the perspectives of patients who had spinal cord injuries and were wheelchair-dependent on colostomy surgery, which is among the bowel movement methods.

Methods

In this qualitative study, which was based on Heidegger's hermeneutical phenomenological approach, the Van Manen method was used to reveal how patients were affected by their experiences. The data of the study were collected by directly interviewing the patients and using a semi-structured interview guide. The interviews were recorded with a voice recorder device with the permission of the participants. Nine patients who were leading a life dependent on a wheelchair as a result of spinal cord injury made up the sample of the study.

Results

Six of the participants were female. The ages of participants ranged between 32 and 52, and all of them were married. The results of the interviews indicated that the experiences of participants who were dependent on a wheelchair about bowel movement management consisted of three main themes: (a) difficult experiences; (b) coping with difficulties; and (c) colostomy awareness experience.

Conclusions

Results showed that knowledge of a stoma obtained from different sources was a glimmer of hope for patients but that healthcare professionals did not exhibit a supportive attitude toward this hope.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nursing Department, Nevşehir Hacı Bektaş Veli University Semra Ve Vefa Küçük Faculty Of Health Sciences, Nevşehir, Turkey

    Gülden Küçükakça Çelik

  2. Nursing Department, Faculty Of Health Sciences, Akdeniz Universty Kumluca, Antalya, Turkey

    Seçil Taylan

Authors
  1. Gülden Küçükakça Çelik
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  2. Seçil Taylan
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Contributions

GKÇ and ST contributed to the conception and design. GKÇ, and ST performed experiments and did data collection, GKÇ and ST analyzed data. GKÇ and ST contributed to the writing and GKÇ and ST did the critical revision of the article. All authors approved the final version of the article.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gülden Küçükakça Çelik.

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This study was present as an oral presentation at the 2nd National Colo-Proctology and Stoma-Therapy Congress-Cappadocia/Turkey (9-11 September 2022).

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Küçükakça Çelik, G., Taylan, S. Colostomy may offer hope in improving quality of life: a phenomenological qualitative study with patients dependent on a wheelchair. Qual Life Res 32, 1981–1989 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-023-03368-3

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