The Correlation between Irritable Bowel Syndrome(Ibs) and Anxiety- Depression

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is known as a functional gastrointestinal disorder, which is accompanied with abdominal pain, discomfort, bloating and change of bowel habits. IBS is a common gastrointestinal disease in population. In western literature, it's prevalence is proximately 7-20% with variations due to different diagnostic criteria in general population. The etiology and pathology of IBS are still not understood exactly, thus the treatment mainly targets on symptoms relieving. In previous studies, IBS patients have many comorbidities during their life span, such as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, temporomandibular joint disorder, and chronic pelvic pain Compared to general medical disorders, psychiatric disorder plays an dominant role in IBS patients and it's prevalence is higher than general population. Patients with IBS had significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression than healthy controls. About 40-60 % IBS patients have psychiatric disorder depending on different study methods, especially depression and anxiety. The connection of IBS and psychiatric disorder is still unknown, but might support for the idea of dysfunction of brain-gut pathway (Kennedy, et al., 2012). This model suggests that the abdominal symptoms secondarily cause anxiety, depression or other psychiatric disorders; on the other hand, psychiatric factors influence physiological factors such as bowel motor function, discomfort sensory threshold and reaction to stress through autonomic nerve system. There have been plenty of papers focusing on anxiety and depression in IBS. However, there has been no report on IBS morbidities among patients with anxiety or depressive disorders (literature research by medline)The aim of this study is to re-examine the connection between IBS and psychiatric disorders in Taiwanese. One hundred patients with depressive disorders (including major depressive disorder and dysthymic disorder), and 100 patients with generalized anxiety disorder, and 50 normal controls will be recruited. Their comorbid with IBS will be compared and the correlation of IBS with severity of aniety and depression will be analyzed.

Project ID:PC10708-0945
External Project ID:MOST107-2314-B182-058