Anxiety and inflammatory bowel disease

Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) is a chronic illness relapse including Crohn Disease (CD) and Ulcerative Colitis (UC). It is characterized by an inflammation of the intestinal tract walls. Previous studies point out more anxiety symptoms in the subjects with this disease. The aim of this research is to study the physiological anxiety manifestations in IBD subjects. The assessment was carried out on a sample of 135 subjects, 65 with IBD and a control group of 70. The instruments were CSAQ and the ISRA. The results obtained showed higher anxiety symptoms in Crohn and Ulcerative Colitis subjects in both questionnaires. The anxiety level was the same for both genders. Nevertheless, the anxiety seems to be associated with the chronicity time. The highest levels of anxiety are related to evaluation conditions, phobic anxiety and anxiety associated with everyday situations.