Efficacy of Hypnotherapy on Symptoms Severity and Rumination of Patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome

The aim of this study was to develop a therapeutic plan based on hypnotherapy for patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and determine the effectiveness of this treatment on the intensity of IBS symptoms and rumination of patients with IBS.

The research design was a quasi-experimental with a pre-test, a post-test, and 3 months of follow-up. Of the patients who were referred to gastroenterology clinics in Tehran, 32 patients with IBS were randomly divided into two groups; hypnotherapy group and control group. Medical treatment along with hypnotherapy was individually conducted for eight sessions in the intervention group and the control group received only medical treatment. IBS Symptom Severity Scale (IBS-SSS) and rumination were completed in pretest, post-test, and follow-up stages by the patients and data were analyzed with repeated measures analysis of variance.

The variable scores of symptoms severity and rumination in experimental group was significantly lower than the control group (p > 0.05) and the effect of the therapeutic plan persisted until the follow-up stage.

The results showed that hypnotherapy can be an effective treatment for patients with irritable bowel syndrome. Therefore, psychological treatment is essential for the management of these patients.