Managing ibd symptoms at work: a survey of workplace accommodations amongst individuals with IBD

Abstract

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has been found to adversely affect quality of life (QoL). The level of disability an IBD patient experiences can affect the overall QoL, although these are two distinct concepts. There is some overlap between disability scales and QoL indices, since both are reported subjectively by the patient, and certain domains (e.g. emotional) are measured similarly in both. In 1995-1996 we created the population based University of Manitoba IBD Research Registry. We continue to update this Registry and have done so most recently in the spring of 2014. There are 3800 persons with IBD in this Registry that we can contact for other research studies. We hypothesize that disability rates 10 years after diagnosis of IBD will be lower than what might be expected from a chronic immune mediated disease. We will mail out a survey and informed consent form to persons in the Research Registry. The survey will include psychological, employment and disability related tools. Participants will be asked to give consent to access their Manitoba Health administrative data. Using administrative health data we will be able to create a trajectory of the course of their disease and the type of prescription drugs (since 1995) that they have used. We will be able to determine if there are psychological variables, disease variables, and drug variables that are associated with reporting disability or unemployment.