Study of bowel urgency using telemedical tool (IBD tool)

The IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease) tool web application is a collaboration of the Mauriziano Hospital in Turin and the Links Foundation designed to support the monitoring of patients affected by IBD. IBD is a chronic condition composed of Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis and is characterized by abdominal pain, diarrhea, and bowel urgency that significantly influences the quality of life of the patients. Therefore, the primary agenda of the research is to test the performance of the IBD tool in a follow-up and monitor the symptoms of IBD through broad data analysis. The tool helps the doctor stay connected with the patient through a string of questionnaires to be filled by patients at regular intervals. These questionnaires are automatically scheduled but can also be manually completed and, thus, serve as an alert to the physician promptly to new or current symptoms. Notifications alert physicians upon questionnaire submission, enabling prompt assessment and evaluation. These data, which include answers to questionnaires and clinical records, are saved in a MongoDB database. This study consists of connection to the MongoDB database with authentication, retrieval of data, cleaning and preparing said data and conducting in-depth analysis. Different statistical analysis and visualization techniques are explained through which insights can be gained in the relation of IBD symptoms with the profile of patients. The results include the demographic profiles of patients, statistical distributions of pathology duration and patient ages, changes in UC metrics over time for each patient, and distributions of bowel urgency across various categories. These analyses help doctors significantly by providing them with detailed insights into the progression and management of IBD, especially in cases of Ulcerative Colitis and bowel urgency, enabling more informed decision-making and personalized treatment plans. This thesis highlights how telemedicine and advanced database technologies can improve care for chronic diseases. It shows how the IBD tool uses data to better understand how patients and doctors interact, leading to improved healthcare outcomes.