TELEmedicine for Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Disease (TELE-IBD) Does Not Improve Depressive Symptoms or General Quality of Life Compared With Standard Care at Tertiary Referral Centers. Issue 1 (31st January 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Schliep, Matthew; Chudy-Onwugaje, Kenechukwu; Abutaleb, Ameer; Langenberg, Patricia; Regueiro, Miguel; Schwartz, David A; Tracy, J Kathleen; Ghazi, Leyla; Patil, Seema A; Quezada, Sandra; Russman, Katharine; Horst, Sara; Beaulieu, Dawn; Quinn, Charlene; Jambaulikar, Guruprasad; Cross, Raymond K
• Is Part Of: Crohn's & colitis 360. Volume 2:Issue 1(2020)
• Publication Date: 2020-01-31
• Subjects: quality of life -- depression -- telemedicine -- text message -- inflammatory bowel disease; Crohn's disease -- Periodicals; Colitis -- Periodicals; 616.344
• DOI: 10.1093/crocol/otaa002
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2631-827X

Abstract

Abstract: Background: Depression is common in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and contributes to poor quality of life (QoL). The use of information technology for the remote management of patients with IBD is growing, but little is known about its impact on depressive symptoms (DS) and QoL. We aimed to evaluate the impact of telemedicine on DS and generic QoL in IBD patients. Methods: We analyzed data from the Telemedicine for Patients with IBD (TELE-IBD) study. During this 12-month clinical trial, patients were randomized to receive text message-based telemedicine weekly (TELE-IBD W), every other week (TELE-IBD EOW), or to standard care. Depressive symptoms and QoL were assessed over time with the Mental Health Inventory 5 (MHI-5) and the Short Form 12 (SF-12), respectively. We compared the change in MHI-5 and SF-12 (with separate physical (PCS) and mental component summary (MCS) scores) between the study arms. Results: A total of 217 participants were included in this analysis. After 1 year, there was no significant difference in the change in MHI-5 (TELE-IBD W +3.0 vs TELE-IBD EOW +0.7 vs standard care +3.4; P = 0.70), MCS (TELE-IBD W +1.4 vs TELE-IBD EOW +1.0 vs standard care +2.5; P = 0.89), and PCS scores (TELE-IBD W +0.4 vs TELE-IBD EOW +0.6 vs standard care +3.7; P = 0.06) between the groups. Conclusions: Text message-based telemedicine does not improve DS or QoL when compared with standard care in IBD patients treated at tertiary referral centers. Further studies are needed to determine whether telemedicine improves DS or QoL in settings with few resources. Lay Summary: This study showed that, in patients with inflammatory bowel disease, the use of information technology to deliver care via text messaging did not improve depressive symptoms or quality of life when compared with usual healthcare.