Quality of life in inflammatory bowel disease in Tunisian patients

The management of the health-related quality of life (HRQL) is increasingly considered as an important treatment goal in chronic diseases including inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD).

The aim of our study was to determine the impact of IBD on HRQLand identify the factors involved in the deterioration of HRQL in these patients.

We conducted a case-control study including 108 patients; 66 had Crohn's disease (CD) and 42 had ulcerative colitis (UC). In the measurement of HRQL, we used a general questionnaire "Short Form 36: SF36" and a specific questionnaire "Tunisian Inflammatory Bowel Disease Questionnaire: T-IBDQ".

HRQL of patients was worse than controls with a statistically significant difference for six of the eight dimensions of the SF 36 "Physical Functionning PF", "Role Physical RP", "General health GH","SocialFunctionning SF "," Mental Health MH "and" Role Emotional RE "as well as the Mental summary score (MCS) and the Physical summary score (PCS ) (p <0.05). The factors involved in the alteration of HRQL were: age <30 years, poor socioeconomic conditions, disease activity, use of corticosteroids, a number of surgeries ≥2 and anterior hospitalization history.

In this study, IBD cause impaired HRQL affecting almost all areas of the SF 36 questionnaire. Incriminated factors may be related to the patient, disease and even treatment.