The Australian and New Zealand journal of psychiatry
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Aust N Z J Psychiatry · Sep 2005
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative StudyDoes psychological treatment help only those patients with severe irritable bowel syndrome who also have a concurrent psychiatric disorder?
We have previously reported improved health-related quality of life in patients with severe irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) following psychological treatments. In this paper, we examine whether this improvement was associated with improvement in psychological symptoms and was confined to those patients who had concurrent psychiatric disorder. ⋯ In severe IBS improvement in health-related quality of life following psychotherapy or antidepressants is correlated with, but not explained fully by reduction of psychological scores. A more complete understanding of how these treatments help patients with medically unexplained symptoms will enable us to refine them further.