WEDNESDAY, April 15, 2026 (NewsDay News) — Moderate to severe disability affects about one-third of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), according to a review published online March 5.Inflammatory bowel diseases.
Olga Maria Nardone, Ph.D., from the University of Naples Federico II in Italy, and colleagues conducted a systematic review of the literature to estimate the prevalence of a combination of moderate and severe disability and to investigate how the type of IBD, disease activity, geographic location, and the questionnaire used affected the prevalence.
Based on 17 articles (7,897 patients in 17 countries), the researchers found that the prevalence of moderate to severe disability in patients with IBD was 29.6 percent and was higher in patients with active IBD (56.9 percent) than in patients with inactive disease (27.0 percent). Disease activity more than tripled the odds of moderate and severe disability in three studies (odds ratio, 3.13). Moderate-to-severe disability was higher in patients with Crohn’s disease (36.9 percent) than in patients with ulcerative colitis (30.8 percent; odds ratio, 1.26).
“This systematic review is the first, to our knowledge, to show that moderate to severe disability affects approximately one-third of patients with IBD, with higher rates in Crohn’s disease and active disease,” the authors wrote. “Importantly, disability persists in a large proportion of patients even during remission, which supports the need for systematic evaluation in clinical settings.”
