Background: Psychological stress is a general and non-specific factor associated with many health conditions, including Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD). It is related not only to external stressors but also to internal characteristics which enhance patients' vulnerability to stress.
Purpose: To identify specific psychological characteristics of pediatric IBD related to stress.
Design and methods: A case-control-cohort study that compared the psychological characteristics of 49 patients and 56 comparisons. The psychological characteristics were defined by four belief types - beliefs about self, general beliefs, beliefs about norms, and goals - which refer to a set of specific themes.
Results: The belief types differentiated between the two groups, and the patients were characterized by six themes: like routines, strive to get others' love, caring about the body and the health, doing things only at their own pace, expressing negative emotion without regulations, and feeling over-identification with others. Patients' likelihood of being characterized by the themes is 2.18 to 2.90 times higher than the comparisons.
Conclusion: Children with IBD are characterized by a set of specific psychological characteristics. These characteristics were discussed mainly concerning generating chronic stress (e.g., over-identification with others) and interpersonal conflicts (e.g., doing things only at their own pace) among the patients.
Implications for practice: It is suggested to healthcare workers to be aware of the specific psychological characteristics of children with IBD, and sensitive to these characteristics during interactions with them. Besides, the characteristics may pave the way for developing a targeted psychological intervention that corresponds specifically to the patients' needs.
Keywords: Children; Inflammatory bowel diseases; Parental stress; Psychological characteristics; Stress.
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