Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) is a chronic and currently incurable condition requiring life-long management. Many patients with IBD report frequent fatigue, abdominal pain and incontinence that affect their quality of life (QoL) and ability to work and socialise.
UK IBD rates highest in Europe & rising
In Europe, the prevalence of IBD is highest in the UK and rising. The burden on patients and the NHS is increasing.
There have not been enough large-scale UK individual patient studies, so UK data about resource needs and costs of IBD and its impact on patients’ general quality of life are lacking.
Reviewing the costs to the NHS & patients of IBD in the UK
This PhD project will: (i) systematically review studies of costs of patients with IBD; (ii) survey 2000 patients with IBD to collect
information about their resource use and assess IBD-related costs from the perspectives of patient, health service and society;
(iii) assess general QoL in IBD using IBD-BOOST survey data; (iv) assess the cost-effectiveness of the IBD-BOOST online self management intervention for fatigue, pain and incontinence.
The goal of this PhD, developed in conjunction with research work in IBD-BOOST programme of research, is to improve the quality of care for people with IBD and to inform policy makers about patients’ needs as well as the costs of IBD.
The research team
This PhD will be supervised by Prof Borislava Mihaylova at Queen Mary University of London