The Illness Attitudes Scales (IAS) and the Beck Depression Inventory (
BDI) were administered to 40 patients with irritable bowel syndrome (I
BS) and these were compared with 35 patients with organic gastrointest
inal (GT) disease, 37 depressed patients, and 40 healthy volunteers. T
he BDI score was found to be greater in the IBS patients than in eithe
r the patients with organic disease or healthy subjects. All the patie
nt groups had abnormal IAS scores compared with the healthy group, but
these were most marked among the IBS patients with elevated scores on
six out of the eight subscales. Three of these were specific to the I
BS patients: bodily preoccupation, hypochondriacal beliefs and disease
phobia. The results of this study indicate that clinical IBS is assoc
iated with abnormal illness attitudes which are not simply a reflectio
n of either an associated depression or of experiencing physical sympt
oms.