Depression and Anxiety Disorders in Surgically Managed Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Abstract

Inflammatory bowel diseases are mainly treated medically, especially with the availability of biological agents, but surgery is recommended when medical treatment fails, as in ulcerative colitis, or when complications occur, as in Crohn's disease. Although IBD patients who underwent surgery had a better quality of life, they also had a higher risk of depression and anxiety than the general population. This study compared psychiatric morbidities regarding anxiety and depression in surgically managed IBD patients to nonsurgically managed patients.The anxiety and depression prevalence were determined in 105 IBD patients, including seven who underwent surgery, by performing a psychiatric interview using SCID I and assessing depression and anxiety severity using the Hamilton Depression Scale (HAM-D) and the Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAM-A), respectively. Similarity in surgically and nonsurgically managed IBD patients might be due to small number of surgical patients.