Development of an educational intervention for patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) – a pilot study

Abstract

BackgroundMany IBS patients experience that they receive limited information and that the health care system does not take their complaints seriously. We aimed to develop a structured patient education, an 'IBS school', and investigate if the efficacy could be evaluated in terms of improved knowledge, symptom severity and health related quality of life (HRQOL).MethodsThe IBS school consisted of six weekly two hour sessions in a group setting. Five different health care professionals were responsible for one session each. Questionnaires covering patients' experience of the education, perceived knowledge about IBS, gastrointestinal symptoms, and HRQOL, were used for evaluation at baseline and at three, six, and twelve months after education.ResultsTwelve IBS patients were included. The patients were overall satisfied with the IBS school. In line with this, the gastrointestinal symptoms, HRQOL, and perceived knowledge about IBS improved significantly after the education.ConclusionAn IBS school seems to be a proper method to meet the patients' need of information about IBS and also to improve the patients' gastrointestinal symptoms, HRQOL, and knowledge about IBS. Further controlled studies are now needed in larger numbers of patients to confirm these preliminary results in order to implement this intervention in clinical practice.

Effects of dietary guidance on the symptoms, quality of life and habitual dietary intake of patients with irritable bowel syndrome

“…Individual guidance has been demonstrated to be effective in reducing the symptoms and improving the quality of life of patients with IBS (18), in comparison with guidance provided in a group situation (i.e., an IBS school), which has been demonstrated to be less effective (30)(31)(32). As discussed previously (20), the common dietary advice given to patients with IBS to reduce symptoms is unmanageable in daily life, and raises the risk of inadequate nutrient intake, particularly of vitamins and minerals.…”

Systematic review: self‐management support interventions for irritable bowel syndrome

“…The search strategy generated 366 studies (Appendix A), 17 of which were original studies that assessed a selfmanagement intervention for IBS. Six of these studies [14][15][16][17][18][19] did not compare the self care-related intervention to a control group (or in some cases the self-care intervention was used as a control). These studies were therefore excluded, ultimately leaving 11 studies.…”

Effect of attention bias modification on event‐related potentials in patients with irritable bowel syndrome: A preliminary brain function and psycho‐behavioral study

“…Psychotherapies such as relaxation-directed hypnotherapy, 14,15 general hypnotherapy, [16][17][18] autogenic training, 19,20 and gut-directed hypnotherapy 21,22 improve IBS-related psychological abnormalities. Non-hypnosis approaches such as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), 23,24 mindfulness, 25,26 biofeedback, 27,28 and psychology education 29,30 also produce psychological improvements in IBS. Clinically, each intervention element of hypnosis and non-hypnosis is a single element of psychotherapy that can be used to improve QOL in patients with IBS.…”