Psychological distress in patients with chronic, nonalcoholic, uncomplicated liver disease

To study whether the presence of significant disease in a major organ, possibly with minimal or no clinical symptoms, would be associated with psychological disturbance, 80 subjects suffering from chronic hepatitis or cirrhosis, of nonalcoholic etiology were interviewed. Of these, 64 had either minimal or no physical symptoms. Patients completed the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) and the Impact of Event Scale (IES), questionnaires, which measure symptoms of psychological distress. It was found that 50% of the liver subjects were defined as cases by the BSI criteria including 15% who were defined as severe cases. There were no gender differences. Forty-five percent of asymptomatic liver subjects were defined as cases. Psychological distress was significantly pronounced in subjects with less than 12 years of education. This study points to a significant incidence of psychological distress, even in clinically asymptomatic subjects, suffering from chronic, nonalcoholic, uncomplicated liver disease.