CONTROLLED COMPARISON OF INDIVIDUAL VERSUS GROUP COGNITIVE THERAPY FOR IRRITABLE-BOWEL-SYNDROME

Thirty-two patients with irritable bowel syndrome were randomly assign ed to one of three treatment conditions: cognitive therapy in small gr oups of 3 to 5 individuals; cognitive therapy in an individual format; or an 8-week symptom-monitoring wait-list control. Treatment consiste d of 10 sessions. Pre- to posttreatment evaluations showed significant ly greater gastrointestinal symptom reduction on a composite measure f or the treated subjects than for the symptom-monitoring condition (p = .01); the group cognitive treatment and individual cognitive treatment conditions did not significantly differ. At posttreatment, 64% of the group cognitive treatment condition and 55% of the individual cogniti ve treatment condition showed clinically significant improvement (at l east a 50% reduction in the composite measure) as compared to 10% of t he monitoring group. Treatment gains were maintained for those who res ponded (12 of 22 treated subjects) to a 3-month follow-up study.