Psychiatric Disorders in Patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome at a Tertiary Care Centre in Bangladesh

Background/Aims: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is one of the common functional gastrointestinal disorder. Psychosomatic illness is a common association with IBS. Although studies in both western and Asian countries showed significant coexisting psychiatric illness in IBS patients, such studies are scarce in south-east Asian countries like Bangladesh. So, the aim of this study was to find out the association of psychiatric co-morbidities in patients with IBS in a tertiary care center. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted from July 2017 to January 2019. Patients were selected from the dedicated IBS clinic of a tertiary care center in Bangladesh. IBS population were enrolled according to the Rome-IV diagnostic criteria. Relevant history, physical examination and investigations were done to exclude organic diseases. A psychiatric assessment of all the study subjects was done by a clinical psychiatrist using the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ)-12. Results: Ninety-six IBS patients were enrolled in this study. The mean age was 33.51±9.87 years. Male outnumbered female (85.4% vs 14.6%). IBS diarrhea (83.3%) was predominant in this study. Approximately 60.41% of IBS patients had different psychiatric illnesses. Major depressive disorder (27.1%) and generalized anxiety disorder (15.6%) were the most common psychiatric illness in this study. There was no significant difference in psychiatric comorbidities among various IBS types. Conclusions: A significant number of IBS patients have co-morbid psychiatric disorders. So, IBS patients should meticulously be screened for such co-morbidities for effective and integrated management.