QUALITY OF LIFE OF PATIENTS FROM A MULTIDISCIPLINARY CLINIC OF INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASE.

BACKGROUND

Inflammatory bowel disease encompasses pathological entities, the main being Crohn's disease and ulcerative rectocolitis. Both are characterized by chronic inflammation of the intestine. It affects young people of active age, compromising the situation of those patients, especially their quality of life, experiencing a strong deterioration in their clinical condition, from physical to social and emotional aspects.

OBJECTIVE

Evaluate the quality of life of patients assisted in the multidisciplinary reference outpatient clinic for the treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases, through sociodemographic data and specific questionnaires on the disease, evaluating the intestinal and systemic symptoms and the social and emotional aspects. Make a comparison between the two scales used to obtain the data.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study was carried out in which patients diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease were evaluated and observed at a reference outpatient clinic for treatment from May 2017 through December 2018. The participants responded to the Socio-demographic and Clinical Protocol, the SF-36 general quality of life questionnaire and the specific Inflammatory Bowel Disease questionnaire, in addition the correlation between the two scales was performed using Pearson's Correlation (metric scale), which data were analyzed by means of descriptive statistics and the significance level adopted was 5% (P≤0.05). The population studied consisted of 71 patients, excluding pregnant or nursing women and patients under 18 years of age.

RESULTS

Seventy-one patients participated in the study, with an average age of 46.5 years and standard deviation of ±13.8; 45 patients had Crohn's disease and 26 were diagnosed with ulcerative rectocolitis; 73.2% were women; 64.8% married; 8.4%, smokers; 50.7% reported practising some type of physical activity. A good distribution of patients was observed between the domains of each questionnaire; no low scores were found for quality of life, and systemic symptoms and emotional aspects were those with the lowest scores among the parameters of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Questionnaire; physical (40.6±44.4) and emotional aspects (49.5±46.0) had lower scores among the Short Form-36 domains. The correlation between the two questionnaires proved to be significant.

CONCLUSION

The clinical profile of the patients followed the characteristics of distribution and prevalence of these diseases. The impact of diseases on quality of life was observed in several aspects, especially those related to psychological components. Multidisciplinary follow-up, as well as psychological, social, nutritional and educational support should be considered important determinants to maintain or improve the quality of life of these patients.