Background:Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic autoimmune condition that can have a wide range of symptoms and a taxing clinical course for pediatric patients. Although clinical symptoms like hematochezia, diarrhea, and abdominal pain are commonly addressed, health related quality of life (HRQOL) is often overlooked in patients with IBD and pediatric patients with chronic disease in general.Methods:We searched through peer-reviewed primary literature related to IBD and health related quality of life, and selected 11 articles from the PubMed database to be reviewed.Results: We found patients with IBD reported worse overall HRQOL than their healthy counterparts, but greater or comparable HRQOL relative to other sick pediatric patients, including those with gastroesophageal reflux disease and chronic constipation. Some factors associated with a reduced HRQOL include disease activity, age, fatigue, gender, psychological variables, and associated symptoms.Conclusion: Examining HRQOL can improve symptoms for these patients and chart better outcomes. Thus, HRQOL should be considered by practitioners when caring for pediatric IBD patients in a clinical setting. Further, more studies, particularly prospective cohort studies and those with large and diverse samples, should be conducted to examine HRQOL in pediatric patients with chronic disease. Findings from these studies can help elucidate clinical management and early psychosocial interventions in children to reduce disease burden.

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