University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Researcher Reports on Findings in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (Physicians' Explanatory Models of Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Qualitative Interview Study).

A recent report discusses research on inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and the explanatory models used by pediatric gastroenterologists when explaining the disease to children. The study conducted qualitative interviews with 20 pediatric gastroenterologists in the United States and identified two primary explanatory models used to describe immune dysregulation in pediatric IBD: the defense and protection model, which compares the immune system to an army attacking the body, and the switch model, which conceptualizes treatment as turning off a faulty immune response. The study also found that the use of militaristic metaphors in medicine may lead children to perceive their own bodies as the enemy. However, these explanatory models may still improve patient knowledge about the disease. [Extracted from the article]