[Correlation in Crohn disease between psychiatric findings and site and kind of inflammatory extension]

Research literature reveals a considerable heterogeneity in personality attributes of patients with Crohn's disease. The present study shows that these attributes correlate with the heterogeneous symptoms of the disease: By dividing the patients according to somatic aspects into two groups "typical for Crohn's disease" and "similar to ulcerative colitis" we found highly significant differences regarding psychological dimensions specially in the SCL-90-R-scales. The results concerning the "typical for Crohn's disease" subgroups are consistent with the patients' so-called "pseudo-independence" described in literature. By contrast, patients with a disease process "similar to ulcerative colitis", seemed to have a personality structure like patients with ulcerative colitis. Thus, psychological attributes may be differentiated according to location and kind of symptoms rather than to the entity of the two bowels diseases. The positive correlation between disease activity and self-rating psychological scales in the "typical for Crohn's disease" subgroups is interpreted as a break-down of defense mechanisms within an acute state of disease.