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Impact of Inflammatory Bowel Disease on Disability

  • Inflammatory Bowel Disease (S Hanauer, Section Editor)
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Abstract

Inflammatory bowel disease can impact individuals at a young age, thus compromising their work productivity. Besides the inability to engage in gainful work, the concept of disability also relates to the patients’ diminished ability to undertake household and social activities. A literature search was performed of recent literature, and all articles containing information about the impact of inflammatory bowel disease on disability or any work-related outcomes were included. Recent studies suggest that 9 to 19 % of inflammatory bowel disease patients suffer from short-term absences from work and 19 to 22 % are on long-term disability. Crohn’s disease patients reported being more affected by their disease than ulcerative colitis patients. A comparison of results from different studies is difficult due to the lack of consensus on how to define and measure disability. Additional research is needed to better quantify disability in inflammatory bowel disease patients.

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Papers of particular interest, published recently, have been highlighted as: • Of importance •• Of major importance

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Compliance with Ethics Guidelines

Conflict of Interest

Katharina Büsch is a registered PhD student at Karolinska Institutet and an employee of AbbVie AB. Katharina Büsch holds stocks in AbbVie. Dr. Sonnenberg has nothing to disclose. Dr. Bansback has worked on projects funded by AbbVie and received grants from Pfizer for postdoctoral projects unrelated to this paper. No funding or writing assistance was provided for this project.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the author.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Clinical Epidemiology Unit, Department of Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, 171 76, Stockholm, Sweden

    Katharina Büsch

  2. Portland VA Medical Center, Portland, OR, USA

    Amnon Sonnenberg

  3. Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR, USA

    Amnon Sonnenberg

  4. School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Nick Bansback

  5. Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Evaluation, Vancouver Coastal Research Institute, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Nick Bansback

  6. Centre for Health Evaluation and Outcome Sciences, St. Paul’s Hospital, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Nick Bansback

Authors
  1. Katharina Büsch
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  2. Amnon Sonnenberg
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  3. Nick Bansback
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Correspondence to Katharina Büsch.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Inflammatory Bowel Disease

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Büsch, K., Sonnenberg, A. & Bansback, N. Impact of Inflammatory Bowel Disease on Disability. Curr Gastroenterol Rep 16, 414 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11894-014-0414-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11894-014-0414-0

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