Chronic fatigue is associated with increased disease-related worries and concerns in inflammatory bowel disease

AIM:To investigate the impact of chronic fatigue on disease-related worries in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and the potential multicolinearity between subjective questionnaires.METHODS:Patients in remission or with mild-tomoderate disease activity completed the fatigue questionnaire (FQ),the rating form of IBD patient concerns (RFIPC),the Short-Form 36 (SF-36),and IBD questionnaire (N-IBDQ).In addition,clinical and epidemiological data were obtained.RESULTS:In total,140 patients were included;of which 92 were diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and 48 with Crohn's disease.The mean age of patients with chronic fatigue was 44.2 years (SD=15.8) and for non-fatigued patients was 44.7 years (SD=16.0).Chronic fatigued patients had clinically significantly increased levels of disease-related worries,as measured by Cohen's d effect size.Worries about having an ostomy bag,loss of bowel control,and energy levels were most prominent in both chronic fatigued and non-chronic fatigued IBD patients.Variance inflation factor (VIF) and tolerance indicated that there were no problematic multicolinearity among the FQ,RFIPC,SF-36 and N-IBDQ responses (VIF < 5 and tolerance > 2).CONCLUSION:Chronic fatigue is associated with increased levels of disease-related worries and concerns in IBD.Increased levels of worries were also associated with impaired health-related quality of life.