Social Network Diversity and the Daily Burden of Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

Abstract

To examine the association between social network, daily inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) burden, and related cognitive factors such as loneliness and psychological well-being. Using survey data, we compared the relationship between social network diversity and daily IBD burden with multivariable linear regression. Patients with IBD with higher social network diversity reported a lower daily IBD burden. This association was more common among those who reported a higher degree of loneliness than those with a low degree of loneliness. We should consider diverse social connections as an indicator of risk for higher IBD burden, especially among lonely patients.