Inflammatory Bowel Disease Nurse—Practical Messages

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Patients affected by inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) are complex patients with various problems from a clinical and psychological point of view. This complexity must be addressed by a multidisciplinary team, and an inflammatory bowel disease nurse can be the ideal professional figure to create a link between doctor and patient. The objective of this comprehensive review is to describe the figure of inflammatory bowel disease nurses and the various benefits that their introduction into a multidisciplinary team can bring, as well as a focus on how to become an inflammatory bowel disease nurse. Materials and Methods: A search on the PubMed database was performed by associating the terms “IBD” or “inflammatory bowel disease” with the Boolean term AND to the various issues addressed: “life impact”, “communication”, “fistulas”, “ostomy”, “diet”, “incontinence”, “sexuality”, “parenthood”, “fatigue”, “pain management”, and “follow up appointments”. Regarding the analysis of the benefits that the IBD nurse brings, the terms “IBD”, “inflammatory bowel diseases”, “Crohn’s disease”, and “ulcerative colitis” were used, associating them with the terms “benefit”, “costs”, “team”, and “patients”. Finally, regarding the focus on how to become an IBD nurse, an IBD nurse was interviewed. Results: An IBD nurse is a valuable nursing figure within the multidisciplinary team that takes care of patients with IBD because this nurse performs important functions from both a clinical assistance point of view (management of fistulas, ostomies, infusion of biological drugs) and an information and therapeutic education point of view (communication with patients, direct contact with patients by telephone or email). Furthermore, this nurse performs the “filter” function between doctor and patient, saving time for doctors that will be used for more outpatient visits. Conclusions: The introduction of an inflammatory bowel disease nurse is therefore recommended for multidisciplinary organizations dealing with the clinical course of patients suffering from IBD.

Consensus for criteria of running a pediatric inflammatory bowel disease center using a modified Delphi approach

“…Registered IBD nurses should also be included in the IBD core team. They can communicate with doctors about disease information; on the other hand, they can provide children and their families with adequate training, psychological support, and consultation of IBD-related information [15][16][17]. This work can not only increase the patients' compliance to the treatment but also brings better clinical outcomes.…”

Content of Telephone Consultations of Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Disease

“…IBD is associated with psychiatric symptoms, and patients may have provided this information because they wanted to share their situation with their healthcare provider. Rosso et al (2021) state that it is important for IBD nurses to listen empathetically with a holistic perspective, as well as undertaking management of abdominal symptoms. The current findings suggest that providing empathetic support to IBD patients over the phone is one of the key roles of nurses.…”

Scoping review with textual narrative synthesis of the literature reporting stress and burn-out in specialist nurses: making the case for inflammatory bowel disease nurse specialists

“…This review also highlights that poor acknowledgement by senior managers of the CNS role and unsustainable workload also fuel burn-out. Health service personnel outside the immediate MDT in which the specialist nurse sits, have a poor understanding of the complexity and range of the CNS role36 37 despite growing evidence on the clinical value of CNSs and the positive impact on patient care 38–42. Workload across IBD-CNSs has been shown to exceed recommended guidelines, with 63% of participants in one study reporting a caseload above the recommended level, and 84% doing unpaid overtime to manage this3; the consequence is that the opportunities for PA may diminish.…”