The features of adolescent irritable bowel syndrome in Japan

The onset of IBS is in adolescence in many cases. However, the features of adolescent IBS were generally lacking. The objective of this research was to know the features of adolescent IBS in Japan.

In 2004 and 2009, we randomly selected Junior high school students in Miyagi prefecture, Japan, according to population of each area. Eight hundred thirty-three boys and 888 girls (age: 15 years old) in 2004 and 256 boys and 335 girls (age: 14 years old) in 2009 participated in this study. They fulfilled self-reported questionnaires those include Rome-II Modular Questionnaire, Self-reported IBS Questionnaire, Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale, Short Form-36 ver.2, other questions on their lives and Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20.

The prevalence of adolescent IBS was 14.6% in 2004 and 19% in 2009. Compare with students without abdominal symptoms, IBS showed lower health-related QOL and self-efficacy and complained more sleep disturbance, traumatic episodes and perceived stress in both researches. IBS girls were worse in both physical and psychological aspects. They also have alexithymic tendency and it influenced on severity of IBS symptoms.

Adolescent IBS had almost the same prevalence as adult IBS, however the rate of IBS subtypes was different. They also had psychological problems in addition to physical conditions even though most of them were non-consulters. Improvement of self-efficacy and alxithymia may help to prevent and treat IBS.