Study of relationship between anxiety-depression and irritable bowel syndrome

Objective The status of anxiety and/or depression were screened in the patients of irritable bowel syndrome(IBS) to get the incidence rates of the subgroups and analyze the correlation of sex.Methods One hundred patients were selected randomly from the gastroenterology clinic,if they were diagnosed as IBS confirmly and the scores of HAD were more than or equal to 9.And then,patients were classified into four groups(diarrhea-type with or without gripes;Constipation-type with or without gripes) according to the symptoms.Every patients were evaluated by the HAMA and HAMD.Results The incidence rates of anxiety and depression of the included patients were 49% and 29% respectively.And 14% patients had the two syndroms simultaneously.The patients classified as constipation-type with gripes had higher percentage of anxiety(35.7%) and depression(37.9%) than other groups.Also,the scores of HAMA and HAMD were higher in this group with a significant difference.57.1% and 62.1% patients of anxiety and depression were females.From the analysis of sex,there was a statistic difference of HAMA score,and no similar result was obtained from HAMD score.But females had higher scores than males both in the evaluations of HAMA and HAMD.Conclusions HAD was a reliable tool to screen the status of anxiety and depression in the patients of IBS.Subgroups of IBS had different proportions of anxiety and depression.And females of IBS had higher incidences of anxiety and depression than males.