Farnam Alireza, Somi Mohammad H, Farhang Sara, Mahdavi Nafiseh, Ali Besharat Mohammad
FARNAM, FARHANG, and MAHDAVI: Clinical Psychiatry Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, East Azerbaijan, Iran; SOMI: Liver and Gastrointestinal Diseases Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences; BESHARAT: Department of Psychology, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
J Psychiatr Pract. 2014 Jan;20(1):3-11. doi: 10.1097/01.pra.0000442934.38704.3a.
This randomized trial evaluated the therapeutic effect of emotional awareness training on the severity and frequency of pain in patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Patients' level of alexithymia was also measured.
The study involved 100 patients diagnosed with IBS according to the Rome-III criteria. Patients' mean age was 34.98 years (standard deviation 10.22 years) and 60% of the patients were female. Seventy eligible patients were assigned randomly to one of two treatment groups. One group received standard symptom-oriented medical treatment only (MT group), while the second group, termed the emotional awareness group (EMT), was educated to increase conscious awareness of eight primary emotions in addition to receiving standard symptom-oriented medical treatment. This study was conducted over 20 months. All patients received 5 weeks of symptom-oriented medical treatment; patients in the EMT group also had two emotion awareness training sessions and recorded their emotions in a daily diary. Sixty patients completed the study.
Patients with IBS scored significantly higher on all aspects of alexithymia compared with healthy controls. The severity of pain decreased significantly in both groups, with a larger percentage of the patients in the EMT group who completed the study having a significant decrease in pain (54% in the EMT group vs. 36% in the MT group); this finding was replicated in an intent-to-treat analysis. The same results were observed for frequency of pain in patients who completed the study (59% in the EMT group vs 43.4% in the MT group), but this finding was not replicated in an intent-to-treat analysis. These patterns were not influenced by level of alexithymia, age, or gender.
Adding emotional awareness training to medical treatment resulted in a better therapeutic response in abdominal pain in patients with IBS.
本随机试验评估了情绪觉察训练对肠易激综合征（IBS）患者疼痛严重程度和发作频率的治疗效果。同时还测量了患者的述情障碍水平。
该研究纳入了100名根据罗马III标准确诊为IBS的患者。患者的平均年龄为34.98岁（标准差10.22岁），60%为女性。70名符合条件的患者被随机分配到两个治疗组之一。一组仅接受标准的对症药物治疗（药物治疗组），而另一组称为情绪觉察组（EMT组），除接受标准的对症药物治疗外，还接受了增强对八种主要情绪的有意识觉察的培训。本研究持续了20个月。所有患者均接受了5周的对症药物治疗；EMT组的患者还参加了两次情绪觉察训练课程，并在日常日记中记录自己的情绪。60名患者完成了研究。
与健康对照组相比，IBS患者在述情障碍的各个方面得分均显著更高。两组患者的疼痛严重程度均显著降低，完成研究的EMT组患者中疼痛显著减轻的比例更高（EMT组为54%，药物治疗组为36%）；这一结果在意向性分析中得到了重复验证。完成研究患者的疼痛发作频率也出现了相同的结果（EMT组为59%，药物治疗组为43.4%），但在意向性分析中未得到重复验证。这些模式不受述情障碍水平、年龄或性别的影响。
在药物治疗的基础上增加情绪觉察训练，可使IBS患者的腹痛获得更好的治疗反应。
