Psychological aspect of patients with inflammatory bowel disease, which may be related to the quality of life, sleep and disease characteristics

Abstract

Objectives

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) usually present with systemic and gastrointestinal problems. This may result in both physical and psychological burden. The aim of the study was to investigate the association between psychological burden and Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL), sleep quality and disease characteristics.

Methods

A total of 106 patients and 165 general populations were enrolled in this study. The demographic information, disease characteristics of participants were investigated. The SCL-90 was self-administered to evaluate psychometric properties. SF-36 and IBDQ were both used to the assessment of HRQoL, and PSQI to quality of sleep.

Results

The SCL-90 score of IBD was significantly higher than that of the control (p = .0007), especially in somatization, anxiety, depression, hostility and psychosis dimensions. Similar to IBDQ (p < .0001), the results of SF-36 (p < .0001) showed that the HRQoL of both Ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD) were somehow inferior to control. However, undifferentiated results were noted in patients between UC and CD. Good linear relationship between disease activity and SCL-90 (R_UC = 0.53, p_UC = .001; R_CD = 0.36, p_CD = .002), SF-36 (R_UC = −0.42, p_UC = .01; R_CD = −0.49, p_CD < .0001), IBDQ (R_UC = −0.57, p_UC = .0005; R_CD = −0.52, p_CD < .0001), PSQI (R_UC = 0.50, p_UC = .003; R_CD = 0.27, p_CD = .02) were observed. With the score of SCL-90 of patients increased, the SF-36 (R = −0.78, p < .0001) and IBDQ decreased (R = −0.74, p < .0001), PSQI increased (R = −0.70, p < .0001). Multiple stepwise regression analysis revealed that disease activity, extraintestinal manifestations, weight loss may contribute to identify the psychological anomalies.

Conclusions

Altered psychological status can be found in IBD, reflecting the necessity of providing psychological care for them. The disease itself results in lower HRQoL. Better HRQoL and sleep quality are in concordance with better psychological health.

Keywords:

• Inflammatory bowel disease
• psychology
• health related quality of life
• sleep quality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [No. 81873558 and No. 81700490] and the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China [No. 2018YFC0114604].