Long COVID, lower quality of life in Chinese IBD patients: cross-sectional study

In a cross-sectional study of people with inflammatory bowel disease in China, those who met the study’s definition of long COVID reported lower health-related quality of life than participants without long COVID. The survey included 235 patients treated at Nanjing BenQ Medical Center and Nanjing Jinling Hospital. Among 221 participants who reported a previous COVID-19 infection, 15, or 6.79%, met the study’s long-COVID definition. Their median score on the Short Inflammatory Bowel Disease Questionnaire, or SIBDQ, was 43.00, compared with 53.00 among participants without long COVID; the difference had a p-value of 0.009.

The survey was conducted from September 16 to October 10, 2023, and collected demographic information, COVID-19-related data and health-related quality-of-life assessments. The investigators used chi-square tests, non-parametric tests and multivariable linear regression to examine factors associated with long COVID and impaired quality of life. Because the study was cross-sectional, it measured associations at the time of the survey rather than tracking changes over time or establishing that long COVID caused the lower questionnaire scores.

In the multivariable model, the presence of any post-COVID-19 symptoms and symptom duration were entered as nested indicators. Symptoms lasting at least four weeks were associated with an additional 8.52-point reduction in the SIBDQ score beyond the association with any post-COVID-19 symptoms. The estimated regression coefficient was −8.52, with a 95% confidence interval of −13.85 to −3.18 and a p-value of 0.002. This model result does not by itself determine the cause of the observed quality-of-life difference, particularly because the study did not collect validated measures of inflammatory bowel disease activity.

An exploratory, unadjusted comparison also found a difference in vaccination status between participants with and without long COVID, with a p-value of 0.033. The finding was based on only 15 long-COVID cases and was not adjusted for confounding, so it does not show that vaccination increased or decreased the likelihood of long COVID. The sample was restricted to patients treated at two Nanjing hospitals, and the cross-sectional design could not establish temporal sequence or causality. The authors said larger prospective studies using standardized IBD disease-activity assessments are needed to confirm the observed associations and distinguish the possible influence of long COVID from that of underlying IBD activity.

Subject of Research: Health-related quality of life in Chinese patients with inflammatory bowel disease and long COVID

Article Title: Health-related quality of life in IBD patients with long COVID under China’s normalized COVID-19 management

Article References: Wang, R., Lei, L., Liu, P., Li, M., Wu, L., Liu, J., Jiang, H., Ren, J., Fan, C., & Zheng, T. (2026). Health-related quality of life in IBD patients with long COVID under China’s normalized COVID-19 management. BMC Infectious Diseases, 26(1), Article 1728. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12879-026-14323-1

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12879-026-14323-1

Keywords: long COVID, inflammatory bowel disease, quality of life, COVID-19, SIBDQ, cross-sectional study, post-COVID symptoms, symptom duration, vaccination status, China, Health-related, quality