Abstract
The burden of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in Australia is increasing but national data about the current prevalence are limited. We aimed to estimate the prevalence of IBD (including Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and unspecified IBD) as well as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis separately in a general practice population in Australia. We also assessed risk factors associated with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. We conducted a cross-sectional study using data from MedicineInsight, a national database of general practice electronic health records, from 1 July 2017 to 30 June 2019. The prevalence of IBD was calculated and stratified by sociodemographic characteristics. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to assess risk factors associated with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. The study comprised 2,428,461 regular patients from 481 practices. The estimated crude prevalence of IBD was 653 per 100,000 patients; Crohn’s disease was 306 per 100,000 and ulcerative colitis was 334 per 100,000. Males were independently associated with a lower risk of Crohn’s disease (OR: 0.86; 95% CI: 0.81, 0.90) but a greater risk of ulcerative colitis (OR: 1.12; 95% CI: 1.06, 1.17) than females. Compared to non-smokers, patients who were current smokers were associated with a greater risk of Crohn’s disease (OR: 1.13; 95% CI: 1.04, 1.23) but a lower risk of ulcerative colitis (OR: 0.52; 95% CI: 0.47, 0.57). Other factors positively associated with both Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis were age (≥ 25 years), non-Indigenous status and socioeconomic advantage. Our findings provide a current estimate of the prevalence of IBD, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis in a large national general practice population in Australia and an assessment of the factors associated with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. These data can assist in estimating the health burden and costs, and planning for health services.
Highlights
Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), known collectively as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), are life-long gastrointestinal disorders [1]
The demographic profiles of the study population and the national MBS data for patients in Australia who visited a GP during 2018–19 [17] are largely similar in terms of age, gender and socioeconomic status, but females are slightly overrepresented compared with the MBS patient population (52.3%) (S2 Table)
We have demonstrated the prevalence of IBD overall, and of CD and UC separately, in a large national Australian general practice population
Summary
We aimed to estimate the prevalence of IBD as well as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis separately in a general practice population in Australia. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of IBD as well as CD and UC separately in the Australian primary care setting using MedicineInsight, a large-scale national general practice database
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