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Anxiety and depression in Indian patients with irritable bowel syndrome: A meta-analysis

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Abstract

Background

Functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs), including irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), are associated with psychological abnormalities, such as anxiety and depression. Though the data on this are plenty in global literature, Indian data are sparse. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of Indian data on anxiety and depression among patients with IBS to estimate their pooled prevalence and to identify the shortcomings so that future areas of research can be identified.

Method

A comprehensive literature search was performed for studies applying tests for psychological issues in patients with IBS. After applying prospectively decided exclusion criteria, the eligible papers were examined using a meta-analysis approach for the prevalence of anxiety and depression in IBS patients using different tests. The odds ratios (OR) of anxiety and depression among subjects with IBS were calculated compared to controls.

Results

Of seven studies (590 IBS patients and 1520 controls) included in the meta-analysis, the pooled OR of anxiety was 8.060 (95% confidence interval [CI] 4.007–16.213) as compared to controls (random-effect model). The pooled OR of depression was 7.049 (95% CI 3.281–15.147) compared to controls (random-effect model). There was significant heterogeneity in the included studies.

Conclusion

The current meta-analysis shows that the patients with IBS from India have eightfold greater risks of anxiety and sevenfold greater risks of depression than the controls. However, most of these data were from tertiary urban centers, and hence, there might be recruitment bias over-estimating the frequency.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, 221 005, India

    Udit Ghoshal & Jai Singh Yadav

  2. Department of Gastroenterology, Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, 226 014, India

    Sugata N. Biswas

  3. Department of Gastroenterology, Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, 221 005, India

    V. K. Dixit

Authors
  1. Udit Ghoshal
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  2. Sugata N. Biswas
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  3. V. K. Dixit
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  4. Jai Singh Yadav
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Contributions

UG, conceptualization of the study, literature search, analysis of the collected data, and preparing the first draft of the paper. SNB, literature search, editing the first draft of the paper. VKD and JSY, overall supervision of the work. All the authors approved the final version of the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jai Singh Yadav.

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Conflict of interest

UG, SNB, VKD, and JSY declare no competing interests.

Ethics statement

The study was performed conforming to the Helsinki declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 and 2008 concerning human and animal rights, and the authors followed the policy concerning informed consent as shown on Springer.com. 

Since it is a meta-analysis, ethics clearance was not required.

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Ghoshal, U., Biswas, S.N., Dixit, V.K. et al. Anxiety and depression in Indian patients with irritable bowel syndrome: A meta-analysis. Indian J Gastroenterol 42, 32–39 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12664-022-01300-0

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