Original article—alimentary tractAssociation Between Early Adverse Life Events and Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Section snippets
Study Subjects
Male and female IBS patients who were 18 years of age and older were recruited from newspaper or internet community advertisements and from GI clinics and fulfilled Rome III diagnostic criteria.19 Healthy control subjects (HCs) were recruited by advertisement without a history of IBS or other chronic GI or pain conditions, and were not taking psychotropic medication or participating in psychotherapy. Subjects were compensated $50 for the completion of a medical history and physical examination
Subject Characteristics
Subjects were recruited primarily from community advertisements in the greater Los Angeles area and included 294 IBS patients and 435 HCs (79% and 77% women, respectively) (Table 1). Ninety-four percent of the IBS patients were recruited from an advertisement. There were no significant differences in demographic or clinical symptoms between those recruited by advertisement and from the GI clinic. Forty-two percent of the subjects recruited from advertisements had seen a physician in the past
Discussion
The main findings of the current study were as follows: (1) IBS patients had a significantly greater prevalence of EALs, including general trauma, and physical, emotional, and sexual abuse compared with HCs; (2) these differences were seen mainly in women; (3) of the EAL domains measured, emotional abuse was the strongest predictor of having IBS; and (4) the strength of the relationship between EALs and IBS was reduced after controlling for the presence of psychological and other non-GI
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Conflicts of interest The authors disclose no conflicts.
Funding Supported by National Institutes of Health grant P50 DK64539.