Relations of obsessional traits to anxiety in patients with ulcerative colitis

The obsessional personality traits and the "state" and "trait" anxiety, measured by means of self-rating inventories, were correlated in a group of patients with ulcerative colitis and a group of anxiety neurotics. The results suggest that patients with ulcerative colitis demonstrate strong positive trends, contrary to neurotics who show negative or very weak correlations, during the active period of their illness. These findings are discussed and some hypotheses concerning the different association of anxiety to obsessionality between the two groups are presented.