Important issues in proposing autonomy training in home parenteral nutrition for short bowel syndrome patients: a qualitative insight from the patients’ perspectives

The standard treatment for short bowel syndrome is home parenteral nutrition. Patients’ strict adherence to protocols is essential to decrease the risk of complications such as infection or catheter thrombosis. Patient training can even result in complete autonomy in daily care. However, some patients cannot or do not want too much responsibility. However, doctors often encourage them to acquire these skills. Based on qualitative investigations with patients, we wanted to document issues of importance concerning perceptions of autonomy in daily care.

Semistructured interviews were conducted with 13 adult patients treated by home parenteral nutrition using a maximum variation sampling strategy. We proceeded to a thematic analysis following an inductive approach.

After achieving clinical management of symptoms, a good quality of life is within the realm of possibility for short bowel syndrome patients with home parenteral nutrition. In this context, achieving autonomy in home parenteral nutrition could be a lever to sustain patients’ quality of life by providing better life control. However, counterintuitively, not all patients aim at reducing constraints by reaching autonomy in home parenteral nutrition. First, they appreciate the social contact with the nurses, which is particularly true among patients who live alone. Second, they can feel safer with the nurse’s visits. Regaining freedom was the main motivation for patients in the training program and the main benefit for those who were already autonomous.

Medical teams should consider patients’ health locus of control (internal or external) for disease management to support them concerning the choice of autonomy in daily care for parenteral nutrition.