Problems Experienced by Spouses of Turkish Patients With a Stoma: A Descriptive, Cross-Sectional Study.

UNLABELLED: The spouses of persons with an ostomy can experience various problems with regard to their new life situation.

PURPOSE: A study was conducted to determine the problems encountered by spouses of people with an intestinal stoma and examine practices used to address these problems.

METHODS

The descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted between November 2, 2015, and February 29, 2016, at 3 university hospitals in Istanbul, Turkey. Eligible participants were spouses of patients who were 18 years of age or older and who had a stoma for at least 3 months. During separate interviews with researchers, patients answered 15 open- and closed-ended demographic and clinical background questions, and spouses answered 10- open- and closed-ended questions regarding their demographic characteristics and 40 open- and closed-ended questions addressing the physiological, work/life, psychological, and economic problems they experienced as the spouse of a person with a stoma and how they handled these issues. Data were entered into statistical software for analysis; frequency and percentage distributions were reported.

RESULTS

Participants included 80 patients and their spouses; 50 (62.5%) patients were male (average age 56.53 ±14.57 years), 55 (68.8%) did not work after the operation, 58 (72.5%) had an ileostomy, and 62 (77.5%) were cared for by their spouse. Spouses included 50 women (62.5%), average age 54.14 ± 13.63 years. Couples had been married an average of 29.87 ± 14.52 years. The most common problems reported by partners were odor (51, 63.7%), housework (27, 33.7%), anxiety (26, 32.5%), loud gas (25, 31.2%), cutting the adapter to the size of the ostomy (25, 31.2%), desperation/pessimism (24, 30.0%), and stoma appearance (23, 28.7%). Spouses cited a variety of coping mechanisms, including sleeping in different bedrooms and attributing the health problem to god's will, which sometimes added to the psychological issues they experienced.

CONCLUSION

Spouses of stoma patients experience psychological and social issues and could benefit from attention to their concerns and demonstrations of how to provide care for their partners. .