Psychological comparisons of irritable bowel syndrome to chronic tension and migraine headache and nonpatient controls.

Comparisons were made among patients with IBS (n = 55), tension headache (n = 69), or migraine headache (n = 68) and nonpatient controls (n = 64) on the MMPI and several other psychological tests, including BDI, STAI, Life Events, and Psychosomatic Symptom Checklist. With two nonsignificant exceptions (MMPI scale F and Life Events) the groups were consistently ordered, in terms of increasing psychological distress: Normals less than Migraine Headache less than Tension Headache less than IBS. The IBS patients were more like the tension headache patients than any other group. Subgroups of IBS patients, on the basis of presence or absence of diarrhea or constipation in addition to abdominal pain, were generally not significantly different on the psychological tests.