Results from two national surveys about ulcerative colitis were published this month in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, a peer reviewed medical journal from the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America. Authors of the research included Dr. David Rubin, an associate professor and gastroenterologist at the University of Chicago, and Joseph Hopper, currently president of Versta Research. Hopper led efforts in designing and administering the study and in analyzing the results prior to the paper being authored by Rubin and his colleagues.

“The study was an important challenge because we needed to document for our client the experience of a small, difficult-to-find population, but we also had to ensure that our methods were rigorous enough to withstand peer review in a medical journal,” says Hopper. The success of the work, according to Hopper, hinged on working with excellent partners in sampling and gaining access to patients, and on close involvement from senior researchers in research design, fielding, analysis, and interpretation.

The surveys found that patients with ulcerative colitis report more flares than physicians seem to know about, and that they are settling for sub-optimal outcomes, especially compared to what physicians say can be achieved with proper care. The results were based on two surveys of 451 patients with ulcerative colitis, and 300 gastroenterologists.

The article is entitled “Impact of ulcerative colitis from patients’ and physicians’ perspectives: Results from the UC: NORMAL survey.” An abstract is available for free via PubMed, which also contains a link to the full article text.

Rubin and his colleagues are authoring additional articles from this research, including a comparison among patients with different types of chronic conditions, including ulcerative colitis. Hopper presented results last year from this research at the 3rd Congress of the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation (ECCO), held in Lyon, France.