The chronic and relapsing nature of IBD can significantly affect a person’s emotional, social, and psychological wellbeing, as well as their physical health.
Community support for our research, via the Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH) Research Fund, has allowed us to investigate new models of healthcare to improve the quality of life for people with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
Our first step was to evaluate the psychological screening and treatment introduced into the RAH IBD Service 2015, alongside medical care.
“We found the integrated psychological care was well accepted, needed, and effective for people with IBD. We also found that this service resulted in a net saving of AU$84,905 over a 2-year period.”
Taryn Lores, Health psychologist and researcher.
Listen to our health psychologist, Taryn Lores, discuss this work on the Research Pulse Podcast.
We have published this work in two international scientific journals and hope to see other IBD services integrate psychological care around the world.
→ Read our paper on integrated care and treatment outcomes
→ Read our paper on health care use and financial value
The gratefully received donated funds also supported a pilot trial of telehealth-delivered hypnotherapy for people with Crohn’s disease. Hypnotherapy is a promising psychological treatment for people with IBD but we needed more evidence to determine if it is effective.
In our trial, we compared hypnotherapy in addition to usual medical care to usual care alone on a range of health outcomes up over 12 months.
We are currently analysing the final results of this trial and hope to publish this research soon and will keep you updated.
“Thank you to those who have supported our work. Please know that it is making a difference to those suffering with IBD.”
An additional focus of our research in the next few years is to find better outcomes for young people with IBD, whose can experience disrupted care in their transition to adult health service.