Phenomenological description of the dietary experiences of persons living with diabetes who relate their difficulties with diet therapy

Abstract

[Purpose] The purpose of this study is to describe, in a phenomenological manner, the dietary experience of diabetic persons who relate the difficulties they have with diet therapy.

[Methods] This is a phenomenological nursing study. I conducted participant observations and unstructured interviews with four participants who had been hospitalized for treatment of diabetes, mainly at regular follow-up examinations, for about a year (2015-2016) starting immediately after their hospitalization. Analysis of their utterances identified each participant's perspective, as represented in repeatedly-used casual verbal expressions about diet, of which one participant's dietary experience was described together with the relationship between "ground" and "figure," where an implication emerges from a dimension that was not clearly self-recognized.

[Results] The participant's dietary experience included: 1) She keenly attempted to copy the meals that she had been provided during her hospitalization. 2) The way she ate in hospital was different from that at home. 3) She reflected on how her ways of eating varied according to her situation.

[Discussion] Even with the intention of conscious management of diet, subconscious actions are inevitable. It was observed that persons with diabetes live in a world where they tend to "eat unthinkingly if food is in front of them," since various types of food are available all around them. Persons with diabetes reconsidered from many different perspectives the knowledge they had acquired during their clinical treatment and made sense out of the diet that evolved in diverse ways.