Exploring the Impact of Covid-19-Related Perceptions on Psychological Distress and Quality of Life in an International Gastrointestinal Cohort Over Time Guided by the Common Sense Model

Abstract

The aim of this longitudinal study was to examine changes in COVID-19 and illness-related perceptions, gastrointestinal symptoms, coping, catastrophising, psychological distress, and QoL during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 831 adults with a gastrointestinal condition completed an online questionnaire at baseline (May—October 2020). Of those, 270 (32.5%) participants (85.2% female, mean age = 47.3 years) provided follow-up data (March—May 2021). Repeated-measures multiple analysis of variance and a cross-lagged panel model were used to test the study hypotheses. Gastrointestinal symptoms and COVID-19 perceptions at follow-up were strongly predicted by their baseline values, while illness perceptions were predicted by baseline gastrointestinal symptoms. Cross-lagged relationships indicated a reciprocal relationship between gastrointestinal symptoms and psychological distress. Moreover, gastrointestinal symptoms had substantial predictive utility, strongly predicting future gastrointestinal symptoms, and to a lesser extent, more negative illness perceptions, greater psychological distress, and greater use of adaptive coping strategies across time.

Exploring Biopsychosocial Health Outcomes in Endometriosis and Endometriosis with Co-occurring Irritable Bowel Syndrome – A Prospective Cohort Study

“…Furthermore, a recent retrospective biobank cohort study (N = 65, 421) revealed that individuals living with both endometriosis and IBS are more likely to suffer from multiple co-occurring conditions and experience greater abdominal and pelvic pain compared to individuals with endometriosis or IBS alone [57]. In endometriosis and IBS, disease-related pain is signi cantly associated with increased symptoms of depression and anxiety, pain catastrophising and fatigue [35,37,40,[71][72][73], whilst disease severity may directly in uence how individuals with IBS adaptively cope with and respond to pain [74][75][76]. Accordingly, the presence of comorbid IBS-type symptoms in endometriosis potentially in uences individual responses to condition-related factors and may exacerbate adverse health outcomes, impairing overall HRQoL.…”