Measuring quality of life in inflammatory bowel disease

Abstract

Most patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are not significantly at risk of dying from their disease [1]. However, other serious outcomes, such as hospitalization and the need for surgery, are clearly related to disease severity [2] In contrast, daily functioning, health perception, life satisfaction, and ambulatory health-care use correlate best with health-related quality of life (HRQL) status. Thus, clinicians and researchers must assess both disease severity and HRQL, using well-validated instruments. These applications allow increased patient participation in disease management, fuller assessment of the disease impact, and the ability to implement the most cost-effective therapies [3-7]. The HRQL instruments, which appear to play a critical role in IBD assessment, will be discussed in this chapter. © 2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.