Clinical features of unspecified functional bowel disorder in servicemen from a Chinese army unit / 解放军医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate clinical manifestation of unspecified functional bowel disorder (UFBD), the features of coexistence with functional gastrointestinal disorder (FGID) and its relationship with psychological factors and sleep disturbance in the Chinese Army servicemen.Methodsc FGIDs were diagnosed based on the RomeⅢ Modular Questionnaire. The subjects were 189 servicemen with UFBD (UFBD group) and 372 without FGID (control group). All subjects completed symptom checklist 90 (SCL-90) and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) questionnaire.Results'Have to rush to the toilet when having a desire to defecate' was the most frequent symptom of UFBD (93.7%). More than one half of UFBD patients had the symptom 'a feeling of incomplete emptying as bowel movements' or 'straining during bowel movements'. Twenty-eight percent of UFBD subjects had combined FGID (namely cFGID). Among them, the most frequent was proctalgia fugax (7.9%), followed by cyclic vomiting syndrome (6.3%), functional fecal incontinence (6.3%), functional dyspepsia (4.8%) and belching (4.8%). The UFBD group scored significantly higher than the control group in the global severity index (GSI) and in all SCL-90 subscales (P0.05).ConclusionPathogenesis of UFBD may be closely correlated with psychiatric and psychological factors and sleep disturbance. cFGID are associated with an increased severity of psychopathological features.