Quality Of Life In Muslim Ostomates And Effect Of Patient Counselling And Education To improve Quality Of Life

BACKGROUND:   Stoma is made for number of colorectal procedures . Muslims are facing lot of problems in view of religious matters. Study is done to assess these  problems faced by muslims and  how these problems are reduced by counseling and educating the patients    OBJECTIVES: To determine the quality of life in muslim ostamates of Kashmir and to assess the effect of patient  counseling and education to improve the quality of life of muslim ostamates STUDY DESIGN:  Prospective observational study. METHODS: Patients who were following with us as an ostomy in OPD  were included in the study. Also the patients who had undergone any procedure with ostomy from May 2018 to June 2020 were included in this study. Muslim patients of both sexes with any type of GI stoma creation are included.  The patients with stoma were supposed to fill a ‘Quality of life questionnaire’ after at least two months after the stoma surgery. Also the counselling and education was given to the patients regularly. The general management of the stoma, remedies to decrease its complication, psycotherapy and the information of Islamic teachings regarding the management of stoma for repractices was  given  to the patients. These patients are then followed again at least  3 months interval to check  improvement in the quality of life after giving the counseling and education.   RESULTS:  It was evident that Muslim ostomate has significant problems in preparation and during the time of prayers. In the current study it has been observed that most of the patients (54 out of 100)  have quality of life ranging from 41 -55% before counseling and after the patients are counseled and educated their quality of life improved to 56- 70 %. Overall improvement in maximum (77) patients is up to 11- 20% after proper counselling  and education. It is also noted that quality of life in colostomy patients is worse than that of ileostomy patients. CONCLUSION: The quality of life is adversely affected in Muslim populations of Kashmir especially in religious matters and the quality of life in colostomy patients is affected more as compared to ileostomy patients. By proper education and counselling and collaboration with religious leaders  and reference to  stoma-specific fatawas may help to overcome  specific challenges faced by Muslims  and  then there  is an improvement in quality of life to good extent