The small study published in the January/February issue of Psychosomatic
Medicine suggests that depression coupled with anxiety and lower quality
of life may push IBD patients to relapse sooner and more often after a
period of successful remission.
Clemens Dejaco, M.D., and colleagues at the University Hospital of Vienna,
Austria, found that depressed IBD patients had significantly more relapse
episodes 12 and 18 months after a period of remission.
Depressed patients also experienced their first relapse an average of
97 days after remission, compared with 362 days for non-depressed patients.
Inflammatory bowel disease includes Crohn’s disease and ulcerative
colitis. People with IBD experience alternating flare-ups and remissions
of the chronic condition, for which there is no known cure.
Earlier studies have not found a definite link between stress and IBD
flare-ups, but “many patients attach importance to psychological
factors, particularly stress, as contributory to the onset and course of
the disease,” Dejaco says.
The study by Dejaco and colleagues and colleagues is the first to examine
depression and IBD flare-ups over the long term. The researchers tracked
the physical and mental health of 60 patients at three-month intervals.
At the start of the study, 28 percent of the patients scored high on tests
for depression. 59 percent had at least one relapse in the 18 months.
The researchers found no correlation between a patient’s depression
and the number of disease flare ups she or he had experienced before
the latest remission.
The study was supported by Grant Hochschuljubiläumsstiftung.
