The impact of anxiety and depression on quality of life in a cohort of inflammatory bowel disease patients from Northeastern of Brazil

Abstract

ObjectiveThis study aims to assess whether the association between chronic pathologies and depressive and/or anxious disorders is high, resulting in a reduction in the patient's quality of life. Patients and methodsThis is a prospective cross-sectional study with a descriptive and analytical design. Sociodemographic data and lifestyle habits were collected. Subsequently, the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Questionnaire (IBDQ) and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) were applied. ResultsA total of 141 patients participated in the study, with a mean age of 45.78 (SD 16.01) years, of which 60.3% were female (n=85) and 39.7% were male (n=56). 58.9% had ulcerative colitis (UC) (n=83), and 41.1% had Crohn's disease (CD) (n=58). 16.5% of patients had a previous diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and/or major depression (MD) (n=23). Regarding IBDQ scores, participants with anxiety had significantly lower mean scores in all IBDQ items (p<0.001), while the depression diagnosis obtained significantly lower mean values for systemic (p=0.015), emotional (p=0.001), and intestinal symptoms (p=0.005). ConclusionThe results indicate that anxiety and depression negatively impact the quality of life of patients with IBD independently of the disease activity.