Authors' Response to Commentary

We sincerely appreciate the insights offered by the commentators about our manuscript. We wish to clarify that these findings resulted from a secondary analysis of a phenomenological study of the life experience of women managing fecal incontinence; results of the original qualitative study are currently in manuscript development. Given that so little information has been documented and published about self-care or dietary management of fecal incontinence, the secondary analysis revealed several types of new data. Because we were reluctant to lose the fullness of the information, we embarked on reporting the findings using what the commentators view as a mixed approach. It is our hope that the descriptive findings provide context to the meaning of the role of food as a strategy for managing fecal incontinence and information to the continence nurse expert.