Gut - CF

Validation of a bowel symptom severity score for cystic fibrosis bowel disease

Cystic fibrosis affects the digestive system and leads to a number of unpleasant symptoms. Those relating to the bowels are often overlooked and can be hard to treat. We are hoping to evaluate a new questionnaire –the CF bowel score (CF-BS)–specifically designed to look at CF bowel disease. We hope it will improve identification and allow us to measure response to treatment.

The patient will complete the CF-BS at their routine clinic appointment along with providing relevant clinical information. One group of patients will be sent home with the CF-BS to complete at home and return to us within a week. A final group of patients will be asked to complete the form before and after certain treatments so we can assess how bowel symptoms change over a course of treatment.

Once we are happy that the CF-BS questionnaire captures symptoms that affect CF patients it will be distributed to the rest of the patients at the Manchester Adult CF Centre. This will allow us to identify the number of patients with bowel symptoms and allow us to better treat them