Healthcare Utilization Patterns and Excessive Steroid Use in Late Adolescence Age and Young Adults With Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis

Late adolescents and young adults (AYA) with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are a vulnerable population as they transition to adult healthcare. We aim to provide a real-world data on their healthcare utilization patterns and medication use through a large database. We performed a retrospective cohort study from January 1, 2012, to June 30, 2020, using OneFlorida Data-Trust, an electronic health record-based data repository representing over half of the Florida population. Outcomes of interest included demographics, healthcare utilization, medications, and disease severity. Chi-square tests and logistic regression were used to compare the rates of medication use, healthcare utilization, and disease severity by age groups. The number of patients who met our inclusion criteria was 10,578 with 2731 (25.8%) in the 17–25-year-old group. AYA patients had fewer ambulatory visits vs children (90% vs 95%; P value