Research shows that patients with inflammatory bowel disorders (IBD) experience a healthcare system that focuses more on medicines than establishing innovative solutions and lifestyle changes. Developing self-care and coping with the disorder requires health guidance with an understanding of important knowledge of tolerance limits, nutrition and physical activity for better health, if possible, and increased focus on the dignity of the human body.
Today, we are in a situation where professional development and research form the basis of ‘Integrative Health Care’. After 2010, the concepts of integrative health care enter international research within the field of inter-professional collaboration. In integrative health care, an "outside perspective", employing different quantitative methods, with an "inner perspective", employing different qualitative research methods. This contributes to the health service's requirements for evidence-based / knowledge-based practices, which at the same time include the patient's experiences of health services, from where they need help.
The goal is to provide research results on tolerance limits, nutrition and integrative health care that can contribute to recovery in patients with IBD, where both patients and health personnel are included in the study. This is an interdisciplinary project at the Faculty of Health Sciences where researchers, master students and undergraduate students are included from SHA and the Department of Physiotherapy. It is a qualitative study with empirical interview material from 15 patients with IBD and with 15 nurses, doctors, physiotherapists and nutritional physicians who have experience with IBD and integrative health care.