More than 50% of a large group of German IBD patients had used CAM. Prolonged or intensive steroid treatment, an academic education, active ways of coping, and a health-conscious life-style are associated with CAM use. Given the potential side effects and interactions, the treating physician should focus on thorough information about the benefits and limitations of conventional and complementary treatment options, especially for IBD patients who have received prolonged or intensive steroid treatment.

The CLDQ-D is well accepted by patients with chronic liver diseases and has good reliability and satisfactory discriminant validity.

Both health-related and general life satisfaction is compromised in IBD outpatients, and health-related topics have major impact. Not surprisingly, inflammatory activity compromises QOL, which underlines the importance of anti-inflammatory strategies. The importance attributed to health-related features is higher in IBD patients than in the normal population.

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HRQOL of patients with UC and IPAA is determined not only by IPAA-related factors but also by anxiety and extraintestinal manifestations with associated musculoskeletal pain.

The IBDQ-D has good acceptance, reliability, convergent and discriminant validity, but limited face and construct validity in patients with IPAA and UC.

The Inflammatory Bowel Disease Questionnaire (IBDQ) is the standard disease-specific instrument for assessment of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in patients with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). A German translation has not been validated. 415 outpatient IBD-patients (Crohn's Disease n = 306, Ulcerative Colitis n = 109) completed the German version of the IBDQ (Competence network IBD, IBDQ-D), the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale German Version (HADS-D) and the Questions on Life Satisfaction FLZ. Face validity was assessed by a physicians' and patients' panel. Disease activity was measured by the German Inflammatory Bowel Disease Activity Index (GIBDI). With 97.3 % completed items the acceptance was high. The Cronbach's alpha for the subscales ranged from 0.88 to 0.89. The correlation coefficients with comparable subscales of other instruments ranged between 0.09 and 0.70. Patients in remission and different disease activities differed significantly (p < 0.001) in all IBDQ-D-subscales.

International data suggest that the IBDQ-D is a suitable instrument for HRQOL-assessment in CD and UC. For both disease a statistically significant negative correlation with disease activity was found. Tested psychometric properties do not suggest that a revision of the IBDQ-D is required. The IBDQ-D offers the HRQOL-assessment as an primary or secondary outcome in clinical trials in IBD in Germany.