IDDF2018-ABS-0164 The temporal relationship of daily life stress, emotions and bowel symptoms in irritable bowel syndrome: a smartphone-based experience sampling study

Abstract

Background The current study aimed to model the moment-to-moment relationship between daily life stress, negative emotions and bowel symptoms among patients with irritable bowel syndrome – diarrhoea subtype (IBS-D) in the flow of daily life using a smartphone-based experience-sampling method (ESM). Methods Patients with IBS-D (n=27) and healthy controls (HC) (n=30) completed ESM ratings of their real-time daily life stress, which was defined as the subjective stress related to daily activities, negative emotion and bowel symptoms 8 times a day for 14 consecutive days, following a baseline interview measuring bowel and mood symptoms. Moment-to-moment association between ESM variables was tested within and between groups using multilevel regression modelling. Results Patients with IBS-D reported more severe bowel symptoms (ps 0.05). Time-lagged analysis of ESM data revealed that, among patients with IBS-D, daily life stress predicted a decrease in abdominal pain and urgency to defecation at a subsequent time point (ps Conclusions ESM unveiled the dynamic relationship between bowel symptoms, stress and emotionality. Patients with IBS-D responded to bowel symptoms with more stress and distress momentarily. Counter-intuitively, daily life activity stress served as a protective factor for bowel symptoms. Our data informed the psychological understanding of IBS.