Anxiety and Depression have often been associated in literaure, with the course of the Inflammatory Bowel Diseases(IBD):Crohn’s Disease (CD) and Ulcerative Colitis (UC). The chronic character of the disease influences Quality of Life (QoL) of affected patients.

To measure Anxiety, Depression and Qol in IBD patients through psychometric tools and correlate these results with the presence or absence of the inducible form of Heat Shock Protein 70 (HSP70i) in the histologic examination of the same patients. The HSPs are cellular proteins with ubiquitus presence in humans, known to exert cytoprotecive functions when induced under conditions of cellular stress ( heat, hypoxia, etc as well as psychophysiological stress).

The study was conducted between 2005 and 2008 in two general state hospitals in the broader area of Athens, Greece.

59 IBD patients hospitalized for the endoscopic investigation of a possible relapse of their disease participated in the study(37 UC, 21 CD, 1 Intermediate Colitis).

A cross-sectional study was conducted through administration of the inventories and the comparison of their values with the presence of HSP70i in the histologic examination of each patient.

The X² distribution for nominal data showed that the presence of the inducible form of HSP70 in the lymphoid tissue, the neutrophiles and the monocytes of IBD patients’ histologic examination is not the same (not homogeneous) regarding depression, anxiety and quality of life, suggesting its possible psychosomatic character (X²>6.635,d.f.=1,p< 0.01).