Emotional and personality features of patients with irritable bowel syndrome and bowel inflammatory diseases

Objective: To conduct a comparative analysis of the emotional and personality characteristics of patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in remission with IBS-like symptoms. Patients and

Methods: This study carried out based at a specialized gastroenterology clinic in the period from 2010 to 2015 included 125 patients with IBS (IBS-D - 46, IBS-C - 20, IBS-M - 59) and 37 patients with IBD in remission: Crohn's disease (CD) - 11 and ulcerative colitis (UC) -26 patients. The levels of depression (Beck questionnaire), urgent and personal anxiety (Spielberger questionnaire), the degree of alexithymia (Toronto scale) as well as the severity of psychopathology and behavioral symptoms (PBS) were estimated.

Results: Patients with IBS were not significantly different from those with IBD in remission with IBS-like symptoms in terms of depression, actual anxiety, alexithymia and PBS. Only the index of personal anxiety was significantly higher in the group of patients with IBS compared with IBD in remission with IBS-like symptoms (p = 0.0376). Men with IBS exhibited significantly higher actual anxiety than men with IBD (p = 0.04). Maximum severity of depression, anxiety and alexithymia was documented in the locking version of IBS (IBS-C) in comparison with other variants of IBS (p <0.05). Patients with CD in remission are characterized by higher rates of depression and alexithymia compared to UC (p <0.05). Behavioural disorders are most pronounced in the diarrheal variant of IBS and CD.

Conclusion: A higher personal anxiety was observed in patients with IBS compared to those in remission of IBD with IBS-like symptoms although other parameters were not significantly different. Patients with IBS-C were characterized by more pronounced manifestations of emotional and personality disorders. More severe emotional and behavioral disorders distinguish CD from UC.