Personalizing psychological treatment along the IBD journey: From diagnosis to surgery

Personalized medicine is becoming a widespread effort to provide the right treatment to the right patient at the right time. However, it lacks of consideration for nonmedical factors, such as patient preferences and psychosocial factors, that should not be avoided. The present study summarizes the psychosocial difficulties experienced by patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) during different phases of the disease in order to identify methods to assess psychosocial risk factors and personalize treatment strategies. To reach this goal, the quantitative literature is matched with the patients' perspective, offering a broad overview of psychosocial risk factors that IBD patients experience. Quantitative results offer strong evidences for specific psychosocial risk factors in IBD and for weak results of psychosocial interventions, but show a lack of individually tailored researches, instruments and interventions, increasing the distance between the research findings and clinical practice. At the same time, qualitative findings show important, though veiled information uncovered by the quantitative research (e.g., identity recovery, fight for control, sexual concerns), which may be used as a starting point for further explorations. The present study suggests a need to adopt individualized therapeutic approach and deliver psychological therapies while taking into account patients' experiences and preferences.