Expressed Emotions in Patients with Mild to Moderate Ulcerative Colitis: A Descriptive Study

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is an autoimmune disease with phases of relapse and remission. Empirical data shows that expressed emotion (EE) is one of the important stressors which shows a direct association with the recurrence of illness. Though a huge amount of research has been done on mental illness, in this research, it has been used to see how this construct effects people with UC.

To assess the level of EE among patients with mild-to-moderate UC. It also aims to find whether there is a significant difference among UC patients with respective to demographic variables like age, gender, education, marital status and socio-economic status (SES).

It followed a quantitative approach and descriptive survey research design. The sample size was 100, including both males and females (50 each) in the age group of 30-50 years. The tools used were the family emotional involvement (EI) and criticism scale (FEICS) to quantify the perceived criticism (PC) and EI. Inferential statistics and a chi-square test were used.

UC patients showed a mean PC score of 14.87 out of 28 and a mean EI score of 17.24 out of 28. UC patients had a total mean score of 32.11, which depicted high EE. There was no significant association found between the demographic variables in this study and EE.

The present findings show that patients with UC show moderate PC but high EI. For UC, the family environment can be improved by better interventions in the form of family counselling and psychoeducation. Fostering coping skills, stress management and effective communication in families will help in emotional regulation among patients of UC.