IBD-Disk as a tool estimating the prevalence of inflammatory bowel disease-related disability and associated influencing factors in Saudi Arabia: A cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) disk is an easy tool to use in clinical practice to measure IBD-related disability, with a score >40 correlating with high daily-life burden. Its use has been limited mainly to the western world. We aimed to estimate the prevalence of IBD-related disability and evaluate the associated risk factors in Saudi Arabia. METHODS: In this cross sectional study conducted at a tertiary referral center for IBD, the English IBD disk was translated into Arabic, and patients with IBD were approached to complete it. Total IBD disk score (0 = no disability; 100 = severe disability) was documented and a score of >40 was set as a threshold to estimate the prevalence of disability. RESULTS: Eighty patients with a mean age of 32.5 ± 11.9 years and disease duration of 6 years, including 57% females, were analyzed. The mean IBD-disk total score was 20.70 ± 18.69. The mean subscores for each function within the disk ranged from 0.38 ± 1.69 for sexual functions to 3.61 ± 3.29 for energy. The overall prevalence of IBD-related disability was 19% (15/80 scoring >40) and was much higher in active disease, in males and in IBD of long duration (39%, 24%, and 26%, respectively). A clinically active disease, high CRP, and high calprotectin were strongly associated with higher disk scores. CONCLUSION: Although the overall mean IBD disk score was low, nearly 19% of our population had high scores signifying a high prevalence of disability. As demonstrated by other studies, active disease and high biomarkers were significantly associated with higher IBD-disk scores.