P636 Work disability after 20 years with Inflammatory Bowel Disease - results from the IBSEN study
Lund, C.(1,2);Kristensen, V.A.(1,3);Monstad, I.L.(3);Solberg, I.C.(1);Hovde, Ø.(4);Huppertz-Hauss, G.(5);Henriksen, M.(6);Høie, O.(7);Bernklev, T.(8);Jahnsen, J.(1,9);Moum, B.(1,2);Høivik, M.L.(1,2);
(1)Oslo University Hospital- Ullevål, Department of Gastroenterology, Oslo, Norway;(2)University of Oslo, Institute of Clinical Medicine, Oslo, Norway;(3)Unger-Vetlesens Institute- Lovisenberg Diaconal Hospital, Department of Gastroenterology, Oslo, Norway;(4)Innlandet Hospital Trust, Department of Gastroenterology, Gjøvik, Norway;(5)Telemark Hospital Trust, Department of Gastroenterology, Skien, Norway;(6)Østfold Hospital Trust, Department of Gastroenterology, Grålum, Norway;(7)Hospital of Southern Norway Trust, Department of Gastroenterology, Arendal, Norway;(8)Vestfold Hospital Trust, Research and Development, Tønsberg, Norway;(9)Akershus University Hospital, Department of Gastroenterology, Lørenskog, Norway;
Background
At the 10-year follow-up in the IBSEN (Inflammatory Bowel in South-Eastern Norway) study, there was an increased relative risk of permanent work disability for patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), compared with the age-matched background population. Now we aimed to assess the prevalence of work disability benefits among Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) patients 20 years after diagnosis, using data from the IBSEN study and the Norwegian Registry for social security benefits (FD-Trygd).
Methods
In the IBSEN study the participants have had planned a scheduled follow-up visit after 1-, 5-, 10- and 20-years. At the 20-year follow-up, they received a questionnaire about temporary and permanent work disability benefits and those who answered at least one of the questions were included in this study. Patients above 67 years of age (i.e. the standard retirement age in Norway) at the time of diagnosis were excluded. From FD-Trygd, we acquired officially registered information about the patients’ work disability status. UC and CD patients were compared using the Pearson's Chi-squared (χ2) test for categorical variables and the Mann-Whitney U test for continuous variables.
Results
A total of 421 patients attended a 20-year follow-up and information from 418 were included for analysis. Out of those, 281 had UC (51.2% women) with a median age at the 20-year follow-up of 54.3 years (range 29.5-85.2) and 137 had CD (49.6% women) with a median age of 47.8 (range 27.4-84.8). At the 20-year follow-up, 38.1% of the IBD patients (UC 34.9% and CD 44.6%, p=0.061) reported that they had applied for and/or received temporary or permanent work disability benefits. In total 20.3% (UC 18.3% and CD 24.4%, p=0.181) reported they had been granted a permanent work disability benefit, while 10.2% reported that this was due to their IBD (UC 8.2% and CD 14.2%, p=0.067). In FD-Trygd, 27.3% of the IBD patients in the IBSEN cohort (UC 26.3%, CD 29.2%, p=0.537) were registered as having been granted permanent work disability benefits during the 20-year period.
Conclusion
Every fifth patient reported that they had been granted permanent work disability benefits after 20 years with IBD, but this was related to other diseases (or reasons) in half of them. According to FD-Trygd, however, more than one in four patients had been granted permanent work disability benefits in the same time-period. While differences between the UC and CD patients were found to be insignificant in these data, the difference between patient-reported and registry data is important for further socio-economic analyses and should be examined more closely.