ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Health Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1649317
Mediating Role of Social Support between Stigma and Social Alienation in patients With Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Cross-Sectional Study
Provisionally accepted
- 1Faculty of Medicine, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau, China
- 2Shenzhen Hospital, Southern Medical University, Shenzhen, China
- 3Shenzhen Clinical Research Center for Digestive Disease, Shenzhen, China
- 4Gastroenterology & Hepatology Unit, First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
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Background: Stigma is a prevalent issue with well-documented negative consequences, including its association with social alienation. However, this relationship-and the mechanisms underlying it-remain underexplored in individuals with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). This study aimed to examine the relationships among stigma, social support, and social alienation in IBD patients in China and to determine whether social support mediates the association between stigma and social alienation.Methods: IBD patients were recruited from two hospitals in China between July 10 and August 19, 2024, using convenience sampling. Data were collected using the Socio-demographic Questionnaire, the Social Impact Scale (SIS), the Social Support Rating Scale (SSRS), and the Generalized Social Alienation Scale (GSAS), which assessed participants' demographic characteristics, perceived stigma, social support, and social alienation. Descriptive statistics, common method bias tests, analyses of variance, independent-samples t-tests, Pearson correlation analysis, and structural equation modeling were employed to analyze the data.Results: A total of 504 participants were included, of whom 65.1% were male, with a mean age of 33.97 ± 9.28 years; 76.6% had been living with IBD for two years or more. Stigma was significantly negatively correlated with social support (r = -0.418, P < 0.01) and positively correlated with social alienation (r = 0.664, P < 0.01). Social support was also significantly negatively correlated with social alienation (r = -0.531, P < 0.01). Structural equation modeling showed that stigma negatively predicted social support (β = -0.487, P < 0.001) and positively predicted social alienation (β = 0.572, P < 0.001), while social support negatively predicted social alienation (β = -0.347, P < 0.001).Mediation analysis indicated that social support partially mediated the relationship between stigma and social alienation.Social support partially mediates the relationship between stigma and social alienation in IBD patients. Targeted interventions to reduce stigma and enhance social support may help mitigate social alienation and improve psychosocial outcomes in this population.
Keywords: inflammatory bowel disease, stigma, social support, Social Alienation, Cross-sectional study
Received: 19 Jun 2025; Accepted: 01 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Xia, Huang, Chen, Pu, Dong, Zeng, Ling and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yiping Chen, Shenzhen Hospital, Southern Medical University, Shenzhen, China
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