Rising Burden of Psychiatric and Behavioral Disorders and Their Adverse Impact on Health Care Expenditure in Hospitalized Pediatric Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease

PURPOSE: The incidence and prevalence of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are increasing along with an increasing number of patients with comorbid conditions like psychiatric and behavioral disorders, which are independent predictors of quality of life. METHODS: Non-overlapping years (2003-2016) of National Inpatient Sample and Kids Inpatient Database were analyzed to include all IBD-related hospitalizations of patients less than 21 years of age. Patients were analyzed for a concomitant diagnosis of psychiatric/behavioral disorders and were compared with IBD patients without psychiatric/behavioral disorder diagnoses for outcome variables: IBD severity, length of stay and inflation-adjusted hospitalization charges. RESULTS: Total of 161,294 IBD-related hospitalizations were analyzed and the overall prevalence rate of any psychiatric and behavioral disorders was 15.7%. Prevalence rate increased from 11.3% (2003) to 20.6% (2016), p<0.001. Depression, substance use, and anxiety were the predominant psychiatric disorders. Regression analysis showed patients with severe IBD (odds ratio [OR], 1.57; confidence interval [CI], 1.47–1.67; p<0.001) and intermediate IBD (OR, 1.14; CI, 1.10–1.28, p<0.001) had increased risk of associated psychiatric and behavioral disorders than patients with a low severity IBD. Multivariate analysis showed that psychiatric and behavioral disorders had 1.17 (CI, 1.07–1.28; p<0.001) mean additional days of hospitalization and incurred additional $8473 (CI, 7,520–9,425; p<0.001) of mean hospitalization charges, independent of IBD severity. CONCLUSION: Prevalence of psychiatric and behavioral disorders in hospitalized pediatric IBD patients has been significantly increasing over the last two decades, and these disorders were independently associated with prolonged hospital stay, and higher total hospitalization charges.