Mental Health and Body Image within Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis
Research type
Research Study
Full title
How Adolescents with Idiopathic Scoliosis Experienced their Mental Health and Body Image prior to Surgery: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.
IRAS ID
337745
Contact name
Victoria Steele
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
London Metropolitan University
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 5 months, 30 days
Research summary
The aim of this research is to explore the psychological experience of adolescents who have had Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis (AIS) surgery, to correct their spinal curvature. Interviews will be conducted to ask retrospectively how they experienced their mental health and body image prior to surgery. Scoliosis is a structural deformity of the spine, measured by the angle to which the spine deviates from a straight line, with angles over 10-degrees defined as Scoliosis (Kane, 1977). Cases with no known cause are Idiopathic, 90% of which develop between ages 11-18 (Konieczny et al., 2013), and diagnosed as Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis (AIS).
Previous quantitative literature has highlighted adolescents have poorer mental health and body image than age-matched peers, (Baird & Gardner, 2021; Gallant et al., 2018) but there is little qualitative literature exploring how adolescents felt, or experienced their mental health and body image prior to AIS surgery. This research will give adolescents a voice to share their experiences and hopefully improve psychological support for AIS in the future, if needed.
This research will interview adolescents, age 13-18, via video call, who are between one and three years post-operation, to ask them how they experienced their mental health and body image prior to their surgery. The interview will take one hour, and ask open questions about mental health and body image prior to AIS surgery. Due to the exploratory nature and small scale of this research, participants will be recruited via a Birmingham based orthopaedic surgeon, Mr Adrian Gardner. Those who have ongoing/severe mental health difficulties or body image issues, such as eating disorders, or body dysmorphia will be excluded to minimise the possibility of harm, given the research topic.
The recorded interviews will then be analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to identify key themes across participants, whilst capturing individual experiences of AIS.REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Leeds East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
24/YH/0102
Date of REC Opinion
26 Jun 2024
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion