Correlation Analysis On Emotional Factors Of Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Objective: Irritable bowel syndrome(IBS) is a common digestive system disease. With the development of society, the life and working rhythm of people is speeding up; influenced by a variety of emotions, mental and psychological factors(i.e., emotional factors in Traditional Chinese Medicine) become the common predisposing factors of irritable bowel syndrome. This research adopted the clinical-control method, with the help of clinical epidemiology, to investigate the living, diet, mental, psychological stress and other factors of patients with IBS in depth, thus to discuss the relationship of emotional factors in Traditional Chinese Medicine and irritable bowel syndrome, and to provide TCM mental counseling to prevent the happening of IBS.Methods: Retrospective clinical study was taken on 130 cases of patients with IBS and 130 cases of healthy people. They were pared into 130 pares according to similar education, similar profession(mental or physical labor), similar age, similar life habits, etc. All the subjects completed the same information collection table, negative life event scale(LES scale) and Trait Coping Style Questionnaire(TCSQ). The stimulation of emotional sluggish factors, the time of occurrence, the influence degree on the subjects and their coping styles after negative life events in recent 6 years were recorded, scored and then statistically analyzed to analyze the relationship between emotional factors and IBS.Results:(1) The basic statistics data showed that there were no significant differences between the two groups in age, gender, profession, education or marital status( P >0.05); the baseline was consistent and comparable. The comparison between the family history of irritable bowel syndrome of the subjects in two groups was statistically significant(P <0.05).(2) Clinical study showed: the etiologies of IBS patients were improper diet(33.08%), emotional disorders(29.23%), spleen deficiency(19.23%), exogenous evil(6.92%) and overwork(9.23%). We classified and analyzed the emotions generated by negative life events according to TCM emotions, and found that the incidence of IBS influenced by surprise(fear) was 31.54%, ranking the first in seven emotions.(3) The life event unit value(LEU) of all the negative life events of each patient in two groups showed: the average LEU value of 6 years prior to disease in IBS group was 74.79 ± 17.55, while that of the control group was 39.63 ± 16.75; the former was significantly higher than the latter( P <0.05) with statistical significance.(4) The various life events encountered 6 years prior to disease were collected. The average of the control group was 1.56±0.96 events per person; while the average of IBS group was 2.33 ± 1.03 events per person. The two group had significant difference( P <0.05).(5) The negative life events were classified according to the content, and the results showed that the negative life events in the aspects of marriage and family in IBS group were more than those in the control group( P <0.05).(6) The LEU scores were classified into none(0), mild(1~50), moderate(51~100), severe(101 or more). The results showed that the moderate and severe life events suffered by the patients in IBS group were significantly more than those in the control group( P <0.05), and that the patients had never experienced negative life events in the control group were more than those in the IBS group( P <0.05).(7) In the matter of the evaluation of coping styles, the negative coping style in IBS group scored higher than that of the control group( P <0.05); while in the evaluation of positive coping style, the two groups had no significant difference( P >0.05).Conclusion:(1) The etiology of IBS patients is mainly related with the internal injury diet, emotional disorder, spleen deficiency, etc. Emotional disorder is one of the main causes of IBS.(2) The intensity of negative life events 6 years prior to disease suffered by IBS patients was greater than that in the control group; and the negative life events were mostly moderate and severe stimulating events.(3) The frequency of negative life events 6 years prior to disease suffered by IBS patients was higher than that in the control group, mostly related with surprise(fear), anxiety, depression and other sluggish emotional factors.(4) When facing negative life events, IBS patients tended to adopt negative coping style, which might be one of the unfavorable factors of IBS.(5) Sluggish emotional factors are closely related to IBS. The adverse emotional factors, if cannot be promptly resolved, may cause the malfunction of the internal organs, such as anger harming the liver, melancholy harming the spleen, fear harming the renal, thus lead to the disorder of liver, spleen and kidney. Failure of the liver, weakness of spleen qi, failure of fire to generate earth, spleen cannot warm yang are the main causes of IBS. Non-consolidation of kidney qi, deficiency of kidney qi, deficiency of the kidney, stagnation of liver and spleen deficiency are also the important pathogenesis of IBS.