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Health Dictionary

Reliable, easy-to-read patient information on common medical conditions — written in plain language, free of jargon, and grounded in current evidence. Browse the most frequent diagnoses, understand what they mean for everyday life, and learn which steps and questions help you have a focused conversation with your doctor.

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Irritable bowel syndrome monitoring

Introduction

Overview

Overview

Response to therapy in IBS patients may be monitored by using questionnaires or scales such as Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ)-15, Birmingham IBS Symptom Questionnaire, IBS Symptom Severity Scale and the Gastrointestinal Symptom Rating Scale. These are both objective and subjective evaluations and help guide further management of patients.

Monitoring

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) may be monitored to gauge response to therapy :

  • Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ)-15[1]
  • Birmingham IBS Symptom Questionnaire [2][3]
  • IBS Symptom Severity Scale.[4]
    • <175, mild IBS
    • 175−300, moderate IBS
    • >300 severe IBS
    • An increase or decrease by at least 50 points is significant.
  • The Gastrointestinal Symptom Rating Scale has been modified for use in patients with IBS (GSRS-IBS) [5]
References

References

  1. ↑ Spiegel BM, Bolus R, Agarwal N, Sayuk G, Harris LA, Lucak S; et al. (2010). “Measuring symptoms in the irritable bowel syndrome: development of a framework for clinical trials”. Aliment Pharmacol Ther. 32 (10): 1275–91. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2036.2010.04464.x. PMID 20955447.
  2. ↑ Roalfe AK, Roberts LM, Wilson S (2008). “Evaluation of the Birmingham IBS symptom questionnaire”. BMC Gastroenterol. 8: 30. doi:10.1186/1471-230X-8-30. PMC 2496907. PMID 18651941.
  3. ↑ Jasper F, Egloff B, Roalfe A, Witthöft M (2015). “Latent structure of irritable bowel syndrome symptom severity”. World J Gastroenterol. 21 (1): 292–300. doi:10.3748/wjg.v21.i1.292. PMC 4284348. PMID 25574104.
  4. ↑ Francis CY, Morris J, Whorwell PJ (1997). “The irritable bowel severity scoring system: a simple method of monitoring irritable bowel syndrome and its progress”. Aliment Pharmacol Ther. 11 (2): 395–402. PMID 9146781.
  5. ↑ Wiklund IK, Fullerton S, Hawkey CJ, Jones RH, Longstreth GF, Mayer EA; et al. (2003). “An irritable bowel syndrome-specific symptom questionnaire: development and validation”. Scand J Gastroenterol. 38 (9): 947–54. PMID 14531531.

Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1] Associate Editor(s)-in-Chief: Sudarshana Datta, MD [2]