Authors: Nordin K, Pahlman L, Larsson K, Sundberg-Hjelm M, Loof L.

Institution: Dept. of Public Health and Caring Sciences, University Hospital, Uppsala, Sweden. karin.nordin@pubcare.uu.se

Background: The chronicity of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and effects of medical and surgical treatments probably affect the daily lives of patients and may thus impair their health-related quality of life and psychological well-being.

Results: Patients with UC reported higher (superior) levels in all dimensions of health-related and disease-specific quality of life than did patients with CD.

Conclusions: Having an ileostomy does not seem to affect patients' quality of life, while having ileoanal anastomosis appears to reduce patients' quality of life in several of the dimensions assessed. CD patients reported more anxiety and depression than did patients with UC. The higher psychological distress in the CD group could be explained by more severe symptoms of the disease. Having ileoanal anastomosis may lead to more anxiety and depression, while having an ileostomy does not.

Study link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=11989837&query_hl=60&itool=pubmed_docsum

• Psychological Distress and Levels of Disease Activity in Inflammatory Bowel Disease
• Health-Related Quality of Life and Psychological Distress in a Population-Based Sample of Swedish Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease
• Psychological Disorder and Severity of Inflammatory Bowel Disease Predict Health-related Quality of Life in Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn's Disease