摘要
Healthcare systems throughout the world continueto face emerging challenges associated with chronicdisease management. Due to the likely increase inchronic conditions in the future it is now vital thatcooperation and support between specialists, generalistsand primary health care physicians is conducted.Inflammatory bowel disease （IBD） is one such chronicdisease. Despite specialist care being essential, muchIBD care could and probably should be delivered inprimary care with continued collaboration betweenall stakeholders. Whilst most primary care physiciansonly have few patients currently affected by IBD intheir caseload, the proportion of patients with IBDrelatedhealthcare issues cared for in the primarycare setting appears to be widespread. Data suggestshowever, that primary care physician＇s IBD knowledgeand comfort in management is suboptimal. Currenttreatment guidelines for IBD are helpful but they arenot designed for the primary care setting. Few nonexpertIBD management tools or guidelines existcompared with those used for other chronic diseasessuch as asthma and scant data have been publishedregarding the usefulness of such tools including IBDaction plans and associated supportive literature. Thepurpose of this review is to investigate what nonspecialisttools, action plans or guidelines for IBD arepublished in readily searchable medical literature andcompare these to those which exist for other chronicconditions.
