“I can fight it!”: A qualitative study of resilience in people with inflammatory bowel disease

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to understand the resilience experiences in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and develop the resilience framework for them. METHODS: Semistructured interviews were conducted with 15 patients with IBD who were purposefully recruited from the gastroenterology department of two hospitals in Jiangsu, China to gain diversity in the demographic and clinical characteristics. The data were analyzed using a directed content analysis approach based on the Kumpfer's resilience framework. RESULTS: The resilience framework for patients with IBD was formed from the analysis. This framework was composed of four themes, as follows: (1) complicated factors in the environment, (2) change the environment into a protective one, (3) personality traits, and (4) resilience-related coping. CONCLUSIONS: The resilience framework for patients with IBD can effectively characterize the resilience experience of patients during the disease and assist healthcare professionals to understand how patients recover from the disease. More quantitative studies are needed to further explore the influencing factors of resilience and improve resilience in patient with inflammatory Bowel Disease.