Also, parents of children with the disease reported that their children had more problems socially than did parents of healthy children, said Laura Mackner, a study co-author and an assistant professor of pediatrics at Ohio State University.

Mackner and her colleague, Wallace Crandall, an assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at Ohio State University, compared the psychological health of 41 children with mild IBD to 27 healthy children in the areas of body image, self-esteem and behavioral, emotional, social, school and family functioning. The children with IBD had been diagnosed at least a year before the study began.

"We thought these patients would be doing pretty well in managing all aspects of their disease, given that they had had the condition for at least a year and that they only had mild symptoms at the time of the study," Crandall said. "We were surprised to find so many with psychological issues."

The researchers took their study a step further, and analyzed the behavior,
'"/>

Contact: Laura Mackner
MacknerL@chi.osu.edu
614-722-4700
Ohio State University
8-Aug-2003