Vaccination and Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Abstract

Background/Aims: Vaccinations in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are recommended to prevent infectiousdiseases. However, there are few reports of vaccination in IBD patients in Korea. The frequency of complementary and alternativemedicine (CAM) use is high despite its uncertain effectiveness. This study aimed to identify the rates of vaccination anduse of CAM in patients with IBD.

Methods: A total of 219 patients attended an education session for IBD patients held at SeveranceHospital on March 23, 2013. We conducted a survey on vaccination and CAM use in IBD patients; 120 patients completedthe questionnaire.

Results: The influenza vaccination rate was 44.2% and pneumococcal vaccination rate was 4.2%. Thirtyone(66%) patients were aware of the importance of vaccination. The vaccination rate was higher in patients who were awareof the importance of vaccination compared with that in patients who were unaware of the importance of vaccination (70.1%vs. 41.7%, P =0.004). The rate of CAM use was 30.0%. The most commonly used CAMs were oral products: vitamins (33.3%),red ginseng (25.0%), and probiotics (19.4%).

Conclusions: Awareness of the importance of vaccination and actual vaccinationrates were low in IBD patients. Despite insufficient evidence on the effectiveness of CAMs in IBD patients, many patients usedCAMs. We believe that repeated education and promotion of vaccination are important. Further large-scale studies to investigatethe efficacy and safety of CAMs are warranted in patients with IBD.