Cognitive Flexibility and Its Dimensions in Patients with Gastrointestinal Diseases

Gastrointestinal diseases are one of the most common and chronic non-communicable diseases that impose high stress and cost on society and the health system. The present study aimed at comparing cognitive flexibility and its dimensions between gastrointestinal patients and healthy subjects. This is a comparative analytical study. The study population consisted of all patients with gastrointestinal problems referred to the gastroenterology clinics (privately owned) and their healthy companions in Bandar-e Anzali City, Iran, in 2018. Of these people, 184 were selected as study samples using convenience sampling technique. They were divided into two groups of test and control. The study tool was Dennis and Vander’s cognitive flexibility inventory. The obtained data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics of multivariate analyses of variance and the Independent t test. The significance level was set at 0.05. The age of the participants ranged from 30 to 50 years, and 52% of the patients and 51% of the controls were female. Test results indicated a significant difference between two groups in terms of cognitive flexibility and perception of controllability (a dimension of cognitive flexibility) (P<0.05). No significant difference was found between two groups regarding other dimensions of cognitive flexibility (perception of alternatives and human behavior). According to the results, attention to the psychological aspects associated with gastrointestinal diseases is essential.