Health Science Reviews

by Jacinta Demetrio

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a common gastrointestinal disorder that presents as recurrent abdominal pain and changes in bowel habits. IBS is a painful disorder that can be costly to treat and even disabling in severe cases. There have been recent psychological studies that suggest that psychosocial factors (especially anxiety and depression) might be associated with IBS. This study aimed to determine this association of IBS with anxiety and/or depression. This was done by using statistics to compare the prevalence of anxiety and depression levels of IBS patients to those in healthy individuals. This is known as a case-control study. The IBS patients in this study are the “cases” and the healthy individuals are the “controls.” The researchers of this study looked at ten previous studies conducted between 2002 and 2012 which included 885 patients and 1384 healthy controls. A scientific study that reviews other scientific studies and integrates all the results together in this way is known as a meta-analysis. This meta-analysis found that patients with IBS had significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression than healthy controls. These findings are valuable because they have confirmed (using reliable statistical methods) that previous studies that have identified an association between anxiety and/or depression and IBS have been accurate. This result brings up the possibility that treating IBS symptoms in patients with anxiety and depressive disorders may improve their psychiatric wellbeing as well. This study and its results also make it apparent that IBS patients are at high risk of experiencing symptoms of
anxiety and/or depression and, because of this, their mental health should be carefully monitored.

Reference
Fond, G., Loundou, A., Hamdani, N., Boukouaci, W., Dargel, A. Oliveira, J., Roger, M., Tamouza, R., Leboyer, M., Boyer, L. (2014). Anxiety and depression comorbidities in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS): a systematic review and meta-analysis. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 264: 651-660.