The Relationship between Illness Perception and Symptom Severity in Pa-tients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Patient`s illness perception is formed base on patient`s beliefs and perceived information about their condition and it may influence the individual’s mental health and how the patient deal with the medical condition. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between illness perception and symptom severity in patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

In a cross-sectional study, 160 consecutive IBS patients, referred to the gastrointestinal and psychosomatic clinics at khorshid hospital in Isfahan, were selected. The patients completed illness perception questionnaires and the IBS Symptom Severity Scoring System (IBS-SSS). Data was analyzed by pearson correlation and multi variant regression models.

A relationship between illness perception and symptom severity in patients with IBS was observed (R = 0.546, P = 0.001). The results showed that 39% of variation in symptom severity is predicted by variation in illness perception components (R = 0.63, R Squer = 0.39). Rregression model showed that only the identity and emotion components of illness perception can predict symptom severity variation (P = 0.04). However, there is no relationship between other subscales of illness perception and symptom severity.

This study showed that there is a relationship between illness perception and symptom severity. So the interventions based on illness perception is proposed for managing symptom severity in IBS.