P219 Disease-specific avoidance is a predictor for fatigue in inflammatory bowel disease patients

Abstract

Abstract Background A substantial group of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) experience fatigue, even while in clinical remission. At present, disease-specific behaviours that maintain or worsen symptom burden including fatigue have not been explored. We developed a questionnaire evaluating IBD-specific avoidance behaviour and investigated how this relates to self-reported fatigue. Methods This study was a close collaboration between the psychology and gastroenterology department of our tertiary referral centre. A 72-item IBD-specific avoidance behaviour questionnaire (IBD-B) was generated based on literature review and input from clinicians and a patient focus group (n = 10). Between July 2018 and March 2019, 500 consecutive IBD patients were included at our infusion unit (wave 1) (participation rate 79%, 48% male, 66% Crohn’s disease (CD), median age 40). Patients completed the 72-item IBD-B, a demographic questionnaire, patient-reported outcome assessing disease activity (PRO2) and a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) for fatigue. Test–retest reliability was assessed in 89 patients (54% male, 70% CD, median age of 40) who completed the IBD-B, PRO2 and VAS fatigue scale a second time after 4–12 weeks (wave 2). Clinical remission was defined as an abdominal pain score ≤1 and a liquid to very soft stool frequency ≤1.5 in CD patients and as no rectal bleeding and a stool frequency ≤1 in patients with ulcerative colitis (UC). A principal component analysis (PCA) was then used to reduce the number of items and investigate the underlying factor structure of the IBD-B. The predictive value of IBD-specific behaviours for fatigue was finally investigated both cross-sectionally and prospectively. Results At wave 1, 46% and 69% of CD and UC patients, respectively, were in clinical remission. PCA suggested a reduction of the 72-item to a final 25-item IBD-B and a seven-factor solution for use in clinical practice (loading factors >0.5, Table 1). The final 25-item IBD-B showed good psychometric properties. The median (IQR) total IBD-B and fatigue scores were, respectively, 29 (40-20) and 52 (77-25) for patients in clinical remission compared with 38 (48-28) and 74 (87-50) for patients not in clinical remission (both p < 0.01). Both cross-sectional and prospective significant correlations between IBD-B factors and fatigue were demonstrated (Table 2). Conclusion The IBD-B is a valuable tool to accurately measure IBD-specific avoidance behaviour in IBD patients. IBD patients without clinical remission report higher IBD-B values and show a higher correlation between avoidance behaviour and fatigue. Further research should now focus on identifying predictors for fatigue in IBD patients in clinical remission.