A comparison of psychological adjustment and type D personality between ulcerative colitis patients and normal in Isfahan city

ulcerative colitis (UC) is an inflammatory bowel disease in which psychological factors play an important role in creating, sustaining and exacerbating of it. This study aimed to compare the psychological adjustment and type D personality in patients with ulcerative colitis and healthy people in the city of Isfahan. This was a case-control study. The sample consisted of 60 patients with UC referred to gastroenterologists of Noor Hospital who were randomly selected. Control sample was selected from family members of UC patients who did not have gastrointestinal diseases.  Then the two groups completed Coping Strategies Questionnaire (Endler and Parker, 1990) and personality type D (Denollet, 2005). To analyze the data, Chi-Square test, T-test and multi-way ANOVA (MANOVA) was used. The results showed that there were no significant differences in coping strategies and negative affectivity between two groups of patients with UC and healthy people (P> 0.01), but patients with UC showed more emotional inhibition (P> 0.01).This study showed that patients with UC have problems in expressing of their negative emotions with others. So training appropriate strategies for expressing negative emotions plays important role in the treatment and prevention of this disorder.