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Crohn's Disease: A Psychosomatic Illness?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

B. F. Sheffield  and
M. W. P. Carney
B. F. Sheffield
Affiliation:
From the Departments of Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry, Victoria Hospital, Blackpool
M. W. P. Carney
Affiliation:
From the Departments of Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry, Victoria Hospital, Blackpool
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Summary

We investigated the psychological status of Crohn's disease patients because 10 such patients had been referred to our psychiatric out-patient department over a period of six years, whereas if there were no association between the disease and psychiatric morbidity, the expected referral rate would be one case in 20 to 100 years. We found an association between episodes of psychiatric and physical symptoms in the case histories. We administered the Eysenck Personality Inventory and the Manifest Anxiety Scale to 28 out-patients with Crohn's disease (8 psychiatrically and 20 non-psychiatrically referred), 17 with chronic non-psychosomatic medical diseases, 43 with psychosomatic diseases and 100 with neurosis. Crohn's disease patients were significantly more anxious, neurotic and introverted than both the test norms and the non-psychosomatic medical out-patients and did not differ appreciably from the psychosomatic patients in these respects.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 128 , Issue 5 , May 1976 , pp. 446 - 450
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1976 

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