Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), are chronic disorders with a variable clinical course. Specific tools, such as the questionnaire on inflammatory bowel disease, have been developed to assess the quality of life in patients with IBD but Health-related quality of life is a subjective concept that refers to how the patient feels about these limitations. IBD causes disability and affects different dimensions of health-related quality of life so disability is an objective concept that refers to problems that the patient may have in different areas of health such as private and professional lives. Recently, the IBD disability index (IBD-DI) was developed to measure the functional consequences and disease burden of IBD. The aim of the present study was to assess the relationship between the IBD-DI, clinical characteristics and HRQoL in a cohort of Sicilian patents with ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn disease (CD).