The Symptoms and Medications of Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease in Hubei Province after COVID-19 Epidemic

Objectives The 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 Methods We 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 Results A 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 Conclusions Inaccessibility 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 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Immunology Research is the property of Hindawi Limited and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use This abstract may be abridged No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract (Copyright applies to all Abstracts )