Exploratory Study on the Challenges Perceived by Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease in Daily Life and Their Coping Strategies: Distinguishing Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis

Abstract The effectiveness of the psychological interventions for patients with inflammatory bowel disease varies across studies and lacks consistency. This study aimed to explore the challenges perceived by patients with Crohn's disease (CD) and those with ulcerative colitis (UC) in remission during their daily lives as well as uncover their coping strategies through both exploratory and qualitative analysis. A free description survey was conducted on the selected group of patients with CD and UC who attended the outpatient clinic at a specialized hospital in Japan. As part of the data analysis, discussions were held among the researchers specializing in health psychology, nursing, and medicine, and the results were classified and quantified into four groups for each condition using the Kawakita Jiro method and the Quantification Theory Type III. Cluster analysis using category scores confirmed that the results could be classified into four groups. The problems and coping strategies of each group, commonalities, and differences between the diseases and future challenges are discussed.