• Huan Wang, Lei Tu, Ying Li, Tao Bai, Kaifang Zou, Fang Xiao, Jin Li, Min Chen, Heng Zhang, Gangqin Li, Yueyue Lu, Kai Wang, Shu Jin, Yuanping Yang, Liangru Zhu, and Xiaohua Hou.
• Division of Gastroenterology, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei Province, China.
• J Immunol Res. 2020 Jan 1; 2020: 2847316.

ObjectivesThe COVID-19 epidemic triggered by coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is rapidly spreading around the globe. This study is aimed at finding out the suspected or confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in Hubei province, China. We also investigated symptoms, medications, life quality, and psychological issues of IBD patients under the ongoing pandemic.MethodsWe conducted a self-reported questionnaire survey via an online survey platform. SARS-CoV-2 infection-related data was collected from IBD patients. The status quo of medications and symptoms of the subjects were investigated. Life quality, depression, and anxiety were measured by clinical questionnaires and rated on scoring systems.ResultsA total of 204 IBD patients from Hubei province were included in this study. No suspected or confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection case was found in this study. As a result of city shutdown, two-thirds of the patients (138/204) in our series reported difficulty in accessing medicines and nearly half of them (73/138) had to discontinue medications. Apart from gastrointestinal symptoms, systemic symptoms were common while respiratory symptoms were rare in the cohort. Though their quality of life was not significantly lowered, depression and anxiety were problems that seriously affected them during the COVID-19 epidemic.ConclusionsInaccessibility to medications is a serious problem for IBD patients after city shutdown. Efforts have to be made to address the problems of drug withdrawal and psychological issues that IBD patients suffer from during the COVID-19 outbreak.Copyright © 2020 Huan Wang et al.

29 keywords...

hide…