A study published in the Journal of Crohn’s and Colitis, evaluated how psychological predictors of subjective health factor into IBD-related disability. Anouk Teugels, a PhD-candidate, and coauthors conducted a cross-sectional study of 1,250 adults with IBD (median age 51 [39-61] years; 54.2% female). Most patients had Crohn’s disease (61.3%), and 34.9% of participants had active disease. Teugels and colleagues collected information on clinical and demographic characteristics, disease acceptance and perceived control, and IBD-related disability. Explained variance in IBD-related disability increased when the model also accounted for psychological predictors rather than clinical and demographic characteristics alone (R2adj 38% vs. 19%, P<0.001). The increase was higher for patients in remission (ΔR2adj 20%, P<0.001) compared with patients who had active disease (ΔR2adj 10%, P<0.001). Disease acceptance was strongly associated with disability in the overall sample (β=-0.44, P<0.001) and both the remission (β=-0.47, P<0.001) and active disease subgroups (β=-0.31, P<0.001).
