Healthcare Utilization Patterns: Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, and Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease.

Background: Limited information is available about patterns of healthcare utilization for prevalent gastrointestinal conditions and their link to symptom burden.

Aim: To identify patterns of healthcare utilization among outpatients with highly prevalent gastrointestinal conditions and define the link between healthcare utilization, symptom burden, and disease group.

Methods: We randomly selected patients from the gastroenterology outpatient clinic at Princess Alexandra Hospital who had chronic gastrointestinal conditions such as constipation-predominant irritable bowel syndrome (IBS-C, n = 101), diarrhea-predominant IBS (IBS-D, n = 101), mixed IBS (n = 103), inflammatory bowel disease with acute flare (n = 113), IBD in remission (n = 103), and gastroesophageal reflux disease (n = 102).

Routine assessment of gastrointestinal symptom using a validated questionnaire in the clinical setting to assess the probability of organic or functional gastrointestinal diseases.

Background: Patients presenting with gastrointestinal symptoms can be challenging in terms of determining etiology and management strategies. Identifying likely organic pathology is important since it can be treated and may result in further, long-term harm to the patient if not treated. Currently, organic pathology is often identified via invasive procedures such as endoscopy or referral to a medical imaging service.