https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4230-1015
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Osman Cagin Buldukoglu, Serkan Ocal, Ayhan Hilmi Cekin, Alterations in Pain Perception in Inflammatory Bowel Disease Patients with Psychiatric Comorbidity, Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, 2025;, izaf074, https://doi.org/10.1093/ibd/izaf074
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To the Editor,
We read with great interest and congratulate Bernstein et al. on their study entitled “Psychiatric Comorbidity Does Not Enhance Prescription Opioid Use in Inflammatory Bowel Disease as It Does in the General Population.”1 The results of this well-designed study revealed that opioid use is more common in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and interestingly this relative increase was not found to be affected by the presence of a psychiatric comorbidity. In the IBD incident cohort included in the study, rate of antidepressant use prior to opioid use was found to be 13.1%.
IBDs are chronic, debilitating disorders affecting the patients in many aspects. One in five IBD patients experience depression or anxiety, with increasing rate during active disease states.2 In concordance with these data, antidepressant use is also common in IBD patients, with some studies suggesting their beneficial effect on disease course.3,4 With this letter, we wanted to emphasize the changes in how IBD patients with psychiatric comorbidites percieve pain through 2 perspectives: the comorbidity itself and treatment-related changes.
