The role of anxiety and depression in the irritable bowel syndrome

Using a reliable and valid structured diagnostic interview scale (ADIS-R), and patients with careful medical characterization, we found significantly more diagnosable psychopathology, particularly anxiety disorders, among treatment seeking patients with irritable bowel syndrome than among comparable age and sex samples of treatment seeking patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Significant differences were also found on the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale and Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression between IBS patients and the IBD patients and controls, who did not differ. Comparable levels of psychiatric disorder among parents of probands were found in all three groups. The results are consistent with Latimer's (1983) notion of IBS patients being a subclass of 'neurotics'.