Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Dec 16, 2022; 10(35): 12899-12908
Published online Dec 16, 2022. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i35.12899
Do inflammatory bowel disease patient preferences from treatment outcomes differ by ethnicity and gender? A cross-sectional observational study
Timna Naftali, Vered Richter, Amir Mari, Tawfik Khoury, Haim Shirin, Efrat Broide
Timna Naftali, Institute of Gastroenterology, Meir Medical Center, Kfar-saba 4428164, Israel
Vered Richter, Department of Gastroenterology, Shamir Medical Center, Zerifin 70300, Israel
Amir Mari, Tawfik Khoury, Department of Gastroenterology, Nazareth Hospital, Nazareth 16100, Israel
Haim Shirin, Shamir (Assaf Harofeh) Medical Center, Affiliated to Sackler School of Medicine, The Gonczarowski Family Institute of Gastroenterology and Liver Diseases, Tel Aviv University, Zerifin 70300, Israel
Efrat Broide, Pediatric Gastroenterology Unit, Asaf Harofeh Medical Center, Zrifin 70300, Israel
Author contributions: Naftali T, Richter V, Mari A, Khoury T, Shirin H, and Broide E designed and coordinated the study; Naftali T, Richter V, Mari A, Khoury T, Shirin H, and Broide E performed the experiments, acquired and analyzed data; Naftali T, Richter V, Shirin H, and Broide E interpreted the data; Naftali T, Richter V, Shirin H, and Broide E wrote the manuscript; all authors approved the final version of the article.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by Shamir Medical Center Institutional Review Board, Approval No. 0097-20-ASF.
Informed consent statement: Informed consent was waived because the questionnaire was answered anonymously and responding to the questionnaire was considered consent
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors report no relevant conflict of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: The original anonymous dataset is available on request from the corresponding author.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Vered Richter, MD, Doctor, Department of Gastroenterology, Shamir Medical Center, Beer Yaakov, Zerifin 70300, Israel. veredr@shamir.gov.il
Received: March 8, 2022
Peer-review started: March 8, 2022
First decision: April 5, 2022
Revised: May 5, 2022
Accepted: August 21, 2022
Article in press: August 21, 2022
Published online: December 16, 2022
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research perspectives

When directing a treatment plan, physicians should be alert to the different expectations of different gender and ethnic groups. These expectations need to be taken into account to improve patients’ compliance and treatment outcomes.

Research conclusions

Ethnicity, gender, disease activity, and income have an important impact on the inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients’ preferences when evaluated according to the IBD disk items.

Research results

Arab IBD patients (121) were compared to historical data of Jewish patients (240). Arabs gave significantly lower rankings than Jewish patients except for body image. Multivariable regression analysis revealed that higher patient preferences were associated with Jewish ethnicity and disease activity. Factors inversely associated with higher patient preference were male gender, UC, and above-average income level.

Research methods

We conducted a prospective survey of Arab Israeli IBD patients by using the IBD disk platform and compared the results to a historical data set of Jewish Israeli IBD patients.

Research objectives

To assess patients’ preferences and treatment goals in a population of Arab patients by using the IBD disk format, and to compare them to the preferences and treatment goals of Jewish patients residing in the same country and treated by the same healthcare system.

Research motivation

Acknowledging and mapping the different perceptions and expectations of patients from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds may improve the patient-physician relationship. This will enable a personalized treatment approach, hence improving patient compliance and treatment outcomes.

Research background

The prevalence of IBD in non-Caucasian populations is growing. Different cultural and ethnic perceptions of the disease may exist and impact treatment outcomes.