IBD barriers across the continents: a continent-specific analysis - Australasia

Abstract

Australasia, encompassing Australia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea, has some of the highest prevalence's of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in the world. The way IBD medicine is practiced varies between and within these countries. There are numerous shared issues of IBD care between Australia and New Zealand, whereas Papua New Guinea has its' own unique set of circumstances. This review looks to explore some of the barriers to IBD care across the continent from the perspective of local IBD healthcare professionals. Barriers to IBD care that are explored include access to IBD multidisciplinary teams, provision of nutritional-based therapies, the prevalence and engagement of IBD-associated mental health disorders, access to medicine, access to endoscopy, rural barriers to care, Indigenous IBD care and paediatric issues. We look to highlight areas where improvements to IBD care across Australasia could be made as well as address research needs.; Competing Interests: The authors declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The authors do not perceive there to be any conflicts of interest. Of note, Dr Alexander Elford (corresponding author) is supported by the Australian Commonwealth government via a Research Training Program Scholarship. Professor Rupert Leong has received advisory board fees from AbbVie, Aspen, BMS, Celgene, Celltrion, Chiesi, Ferring, Glutagen, Hospira, Janssen, Lilly, MSD, Novartis, Pfizer, Prometheus Biosciences, Takeda. Research grants from Celltrion, Shire, Janssen, Takeda, Joanna Tiddy grant from University of Sydney, Gastroenterological Society of Australia, NHMRC, Gutsy Group, Pfizer. Associate Professor Christensen has received speaking fees from Abbvie, Janssen, Pfizer, Takeda and Ferring; research grants from Janssen and Ferring Pharmaceuticals and served on the advisory board of Gilead and Novartis. (© The Author(s), 2023.)