The following is a summary of “Disease Acceptance, but not Perceived Control, is Uniquely Associated with Inflammatory Bowel Disease-related Disability,” published in the March 2024 issue of Gastroenterology by Teugels et al.
Disability is proposed as a critical clinical outcome to assess disease burden in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
Researchers conducted a retrospective study examining how disease acceptance and perceived control relate to disability in IBD patients.
They involved adult patients with IBD at University Hospitals Leuven. Patients completed a survey covering clinical and demographic details, disease acceptance, perceived control (Subjective Health Experience model questionnaire), and IBD-related disability (IBD Disk). Multiple linear regressions were utilized to evaluate predictors of IBD-related disability within the total sample and among subgroups with clinical remission or active disease.
The results showed that in the total sample (N = 1250, 54.2% female, median IQR age 51 [39–61] years, 61.3% Crohn’s disease, 34.9% active disease), incorporating psychological predictors into the model increased the explained variance in IBD-related disability by 19% than model containing only demographic and clinical characteristics [R2 adj 38% vs. 19%, P<0.001]. Increase was more pronounced for patients in clinical remission [ΔR2 adj 20%, P<0.001] than for those with active disease [ΔR2 adj 10%, P<0.001]. Among predictors, disease acceptance demonstrated the strongest association with disability in the total sample [β = -0.44, P<0.001], as well as in both subgroups [β = -0.47, P<0.001 and β = -0.31, P<0.001 respectively]. Perceived control did not exhibit a significant association with disability when considering all other predictors.
Investigators concluded a strong link between accepting IBD and reduced disability, suggesting disease acceptance as a potential target for future treatments.
Source: academic.oup.com/ecco-jcc/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/ecco-jcc/jjae025/7623192