Living With Chronic Rhinosinusitis: Insights From an Arts-Based Study

Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) significantly reduces quality of life (QoL), but data regarding the extent of its impact is sparse. Questionnaire-based assessments of QoL may neglect aspects of complex patient experiences. Recent studies on asthma patients and other chronic conditions have used self-expression through artwork to better depict patients' experiences. This study aims to analyze the experience of living with CRS by exploring common characteristics represented within artworks.

A prospective qualitative arts-based study was conducted. Adults with CRS were included (n = 16). Disease severity and depression and anxiety were graded using standardized scales. Patient experience was evaluated using drawings and semi-structured interviews. ChatGPT-4, a generative large-language model, was used to interpret interview transcripts according to the Common-Sense Model for Self-Regulation to identify themes.

Analysis of artworks through interviews identified six main themes: "chronicity and adaptation," "impacts," "emotional toll," "healthcare navigation and advocacy," "resilience and personal growth," and "complexity and nuance." These reveal in greater detail a multifaceted and contradicting emotional landscape shaped by chronic illness. For patients who scored high on depression and anxiety scales, the emotional toll and impacts were more prominently depicted in interviews. Compared with similar studies conducted in patients with asthma, these results highlight the more prevalent difficulties of navigating the healthcare system for patients with CRS.

An arts-based methodology enables in-depth exploration of the impact of CRS on QoL, using large language models, a type of artificial intelligence, to identify common themes amongst individual experiences of CRS patients.