Psychological distress in adolescents and young adults with inflammatory bowel disease

Resumen

Background: Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD) are a group of pathologies characterized by affecting the digestive tract, which includes Ulcerative Colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD). In recent years, there has been a significant increase in IBD cases in Puerto Rico in children of age 14 and under. In contrast to their peers, adolescents and young adults with IBD experience challenges due to the nature of the disease. While the physical challenges of IBDs are well known, the disease also affects their quality of life due to emotional and social obstacles. The vulnerability of experimenting anxiety and depression symptoms in patients with IBD, could have negative implications in the treatment of the disease. Objective: We aimed to describe the psychological distress presented in adolescents and young adults with IBD. Method: The database of Centro Médico Episcopal San Lucas pediatric unit was used for data collection between the years 2015-2019. Eleven cases of patients between the ages of 14-20 years old with IBD were identified. Conclusion: Results did not present a significant difference between the categories of IBD and the presence of depression and the presence of anxiety. However, when UC and CD patients were compared, there was a noticeable increased presence of depression symptoms among patients with UC.