Diagnostic Delay of Inflammatory Bowel Disease Is Significantly Higher in Public versus Private Health Care System in Mexican Patients

Abstract

Introduction: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) includes ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD) characterized by a fluctuating course with periods of clinical activity and remission. No previous studies have demonstrated the frequency of delay at diagnosis and its associated factors in Mexico and Latin America. The aim of this study was to evaluate diagnostic delay of IBD in the last 4 decades in 2 different health care systems (public vs. private) and its associated factors.

Methods: This is a cohort study that included 1,056 patients with a confirmed diagnosis of IBD from public and private health care systems. The diagnostic delay was defined as time >1 year from the onset of symptoms to the confirmed diagnosis for patients with UC and 2 years for patients with CD. Statistical analysis was performed with the SPSS v.24 program. A value of p ≤ 0.05 was taken as significant.

Results: The delay at diagnosis decreased significantly by 24.9% in the last 4 decades. The factors associated with the diagnostic delay were proctitis in UC, clinical course >2 relapses per year and IBD surgeries for CD. We found a delay at diagnosis in 35.2% of IBD patients in the public versus 16.9% in the private health care system (p = 0.00001).

Conclusions: We found a significant diagnosis delay of IBD in 35.2% from the public health care system versus 16.9% in the private health care system.

Keywords: Delay; Diagnosis; Inflammatory bowel disease.