Influence of the COVID-19 Outbreak on Disease Activity and Quality of Life in Inflammatory Bowel Disease Patients

<jats:p><jats:bold>Objective:</jats:bold> The present preliminary cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the extent to which health-related quality of life of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) was influenced by the outbreak of Covid-19 while controlling for disease activity.</jats:p><jats:p><jats:bold>Methods:</jats:bold> Two samples of 195 (recruited before Covid-19 outbreak) and 707 patients (recruited during the Covid-19-related lockdown) were included. Psychological distress (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, HADS), quality of life (Inflammatory Bowel Disease Questionnaire, IBDQ), and somatization (Patient Health Questionnaire, PHQ-12) were concurrently assessed.</jats:p><jats:p><jats:bold>Results:</jats:bold> Patients with active IBD were more prevalently affected by ulcerative colitis (60.2%, η<jats:sup>2</jats:sup> = 0.12) and, expectedly, showed higher psychological distress (HADS, d = 0.34) and somatization (PHQ-12, d = 0.39), as well as poorer disease-specific health-related quality of life (effect sizes for the total and subscale IBDQ scores in the large range of d &gt; 0.50). Hierarchical regression models revealed that setting (pre-Covid-19 outbreak <jats:italic>vs</jats:italic>. during lockdown) (<jats:italic>p</jats:italic> &lt; 0.001) explained only a small portion (8%) of the IBDQ variance. IBD-related factors (ulcerative colitis and disease activity) and psychological factors (psychological distress and somatization) added a significant amount of 25 and 27%, respectively, to the explained IBDQ variance. The final model predicted 59% of the explained IBDQ variance.</jats:p><jats:p><jats:bold>Conclusion:</jats:bold> Clinical and psychological manifestations seem to be major impairments in IBD patients both before and during the Covid-19 outbreak. Furthermore, the quality of life of IBD patients seem to be more influenced by psychological and somatizing distressing symptoms than the pandemic-related living conditions.</jats:p>