Introduction: Little is known about the differences between patients diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) by a physician who meet the Rome IV criteria for IBS and those who do not. We conducted a longitudinal follow-up study examining this.
Methods: We collected complete gastrointestinal, extraintestinal, and psychological symptom data from 577 consecutive adult patients with suspected IBS in a single UK gastroenterology clinic. We compared baseline characteristics between patients who met Rome IV criteria for IBS, and those who had IBS according to a physician's diagnosis but who did not meet Rome IV criteria, as well as examining whether meeting Rome IV criteria at baseline influenced evolution of symptoms under therapy.
Key results: Of 455 patients diagnosed with IBS by a physician, 375 (82.4%) met Rome IV criteria and 80 (17.4%) did not. Those who met Rome IV criteria were more likely to report severe symptoms (67.6%, vs. 30.0%, p < 0.001) and that symptoms limited activities ≥50% of the time (63.0%, vs. 37.5%, p < 0.001). Patients with Rome IV IBS were more likely to have abnormal anxiety scores (50.8%, vs. 35.9%, p = 0.007) and higher levels of somatoform symptom-reporting (29.4%, vs. 12.5%, p < 0.001). Despite this, during longitudinal follow-up, there was no significant difference in mean number of appointments required subsequently, or IBS symptom severity.
Conclusions and inferences: Although patients who met the Rome IV criteria had more severe symptoms at baseline and were more likely to exhibit psychological comorbidity, they did not appear to have a worse prognosis than those with physician-diagnosed IBS.
Keywords: Rome IV criteria; irritable bowel syndrome; physician's diagnosis; prognosis.
© 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.