Towards A Better Understanding of Anxiety in Irritable Bowel Syndrome: A Preliminary Look at Worry and Intolerance of Uncertainty

Although it has been fairly well established that symptoms of anxiety are often present in patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), less is known about the role of worry and intolerance of uncertainty in this population. This study investigates the relations among these variables in a sample of treatment-seeking IBS patients. Although the results are preliminary, worry does seem to predict gastrointestinal symptom severity and, when combined with a measure of current anxiety, accounts for almost 30% of the variance. Intolerance of uncertainty differentiated diarrhea-predominant IBS patients from constipation-predominant IBS patients. Earlier research has taken a psychiatric perspective on anxiety in IBS patients-the current study may provide some support for shifting our focus to the cognitive biases that may be operating in IBS patients, regardless of the presence of an anxiety disorder. Implications for a cognitive therapy approach to IBS treatment are discussed.