Patients' perceptions, attitudes, and experiences about the management of mild-to-moderate ulcerative colitis.

OBJECTIVE: To establish the perceptions, attitudes, experiences, and satisfaction with clinical management of ulcerative colitis (UC) patients, particularly in aspects related to treatment. METHODS: A qualitative, descriptive, exploratory study. A discussion group was performed in patients who were in remission according to the criteria of the Mayo index, who had never taken biologics or corticosteroids in the past year. They were selected by: course (mild/moderate), time since onset (under 5 years/ 5 to 9 years/ 10 years or more), follow-up area (primary care [PC]-hospital/PC-specialist care/hospital), treatment (yes/no), UC care unit (yes/no), belongs to patient associations (yes/no) and sex. A descriptive-interpretative content analysis was performed to detect emerging categories, providing them with an explanatory framework. RESULTS: Diagnostic delay was detected due to lack of clinical suspicion from PC and delayed diagnostic tests. For follow-up, patients prefer care on demand, channeled through remote care, which helps to resolve questions, problems with treatment, or when a relapse occurs, minimizing visits to the hospital. They demand more information, both about UC and treatment. The expectations about treatments are limited, so they mainly requested efficacy and safety. CONCLUSION: The results suggest the importance of developing strategies to facilitate care on demand and remote care, and to investigate on effective and safe treatments to minimize the detriment to quality of life of patients. These strategies should guarantee fast care and, together with safe and effective treatments, optimize the management of UC patients.

[Impacted foreign body in a patient with Crohn's disease]. / Impactación de un cuerpo extraño en un paciente con enfermedad de Crohn.

Crohn's disease is often complicated by intestinal strictures. Symptomatic strictures refractory to medical therapy usually require surgery. Endoscopic balloon dilatation is an alternative to surgery. We report the case of a patient with Crohn's disease with asymptomatic ileocecal stricture, which was identified after intestinal obstruction due to an impacted foreign body. The patient underwent endoscopic dilatation and the foreign body was extracted. We provide a review of the literature on endoscopic balloon dilatation of intestinal strictures in Crohn's disease.