Low Subjective Wellbeing Is Associated with Psychological Distress in People Living with Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Abstract

Background: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a common and debilitating disease of the gastrointestinal tract. Psychological distress is highly comorbid to IBD, especially during periods of active disease. However, a controversy exists on how to best manage its symptoms in the IBD population.

Aims: This study aimed to explore protective and risk factors of psychological distress in IBD.

Methods: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted via social media and online patient forums. Respondents (N = 235) filled out questionnaires on demographics, health characteristics and a range of psychological variables. Measures of pain, disease activity, comorbid functional symptom severity, social support, subjective wellbeing, sleep quality, fatigue, stress, age, BMI and gender were entered into the Classification and Regression Tree Analysis model.

Results: Overall, 87 participants (37%) reported distress. Self-reported stress significantly discriminated between cases of probable psychological distress. In those with high stress, patients with and without probable psychological distress were separated by subjective wellbeing. Among patients with low stress, fatigue was the primary discriminator.

Conclusions: Monitoring patients for low subjective wellbeing and high stress in clinical settings could offer an opportunity to engage in early intervention to limit psychological distress development. Monitoring for fatigue in patients who seem otherwise psychologically well could offer preventative benefits.

Keywords: Classification and regression tree analysis; Inflammatory bowel disease; Psychological distress; Subjective wellbeing.