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“We're stuck with what we've got”: The impact of lipodystrophy on body image

Overview of attention for article published in Journal of Clinical Nursing, May 2018
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  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (85th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (80th percentile)

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18 X users
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1 Facebook page

Citations

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22 Dimensions

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65 Mendeley
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Title
“We're stuck with what we've got”: The impact of lipodystrophy on body image
Published in
Journal of Clinical Nursing, May 2018
DOI 10.1111/jocn.14342
Pubmed ID
Authors

Claire Adams, Anna Stears, David Savage, Christi Deaton

Abstract

To evaluate the impact of lipodystrophy on body image and how this affects patients' daily lives. Lipodystrophy refers to a group of rare conditions characterised by generalised or partial lack of body fat and is associated with severe metabolic problems e.g. severe insulin resistance, diabetes and pancreatitis. In addition to its metabolic effect, lack of adipose tissue may have a major impact on appearance and cause distressing physical changes. While global research has focused on diagnosis and management, there is no published work investigating the psychological effects of lipodystrophy on body image. Following ethical approval, participants with lipodystrophy were purposively sampled from the National Severe Insulin Resistance Service in Cambridge UK, and invited to take part in a semi-structured interview. Eleven (10 female, 1 male) interviews were conducted and digitally recorded. Data were analysed using an inductive thematic approach. Four main themes were identified in the dataset; "Always feeling appearance was different", "a better understanding of lipodystrophy is needed", "feeling accepted", and "there's more to lipodystrophy than managing symptoms". Participants spoke of distressing cosmetic effects related to lack of fat tissue and other changes related to lipodystrophy, contributing to negative body image. For some, negative body image led to feelings of worthlessness impacting daily life and adherence to treatment. Psychological support was lacking but desired by participants. Lipodystrophy contributes to negative body image affecting patients' daily lives. Patients wanted psychological support alongside medical management. Further research is needed to determine how best to deliver psychological support and to evaluate its impact on wellbeing and metabolic management. The effects of rare diseases such as lipodystrophy on appearance can be distressing for patients. Support beyond medical management is needed to improve patients' daily lives and help them to live well with appearance-altering conditions. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 18 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 65 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 65 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 9 14%
Student > Ph. D. Student 7 11%
Student > Bachelor 7 11%
Student > Doctoral Student 5 8%
Researcher 5 8%
Other 12 18%
Unknown 20 31%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 14 22%
Psychology 10 15%
Nursing and Health Professions 9 14%
Business, Management and Accounting 4 6%
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science 2 3%
Other 6 9%
Unknown 20 31%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 15. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 08 June 2018.
All research outputs
#2,484,028
of 25,396,120 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Clinical Nursing
#593
of 5,570 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#50,257
of 344,933 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Clinical Nursing
#22
of 106 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,396,120 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 90th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 5,570 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 7.4. This one has done well, scoring higher than 89% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 344,933 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 85% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 106 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 80% of its contemporaries.