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Introduction: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is the most common functional bowel disorder. Stress triggers or aggravates it's symptoms. This investigation is carried out to determine the effect of Benson relaxation therapy on anxiety level and severity of symptoms in patients with irritable bowel syndrome. Materials and Methods: In this clinical trial 30 patients with irritable bowel syndrom were randomly divided into case and control groups. The control group was treated by only usual medical therapy but the case group was treated by combined medical- relaxational therapy. The two groups continued therapy for three months. Anxiety level and gastrointestinal symptoms of case and control groups were compared at three different times (two weeks before intervention and one week and three months after intervention). Also, patients were asked to document 6 common gastrointestinal symptoms in their daily symptom diaries, 2 weeks before intervention to 3 months after intervention. At the end of each week, these symptoms were compared in the two groups. Data was analyzed using chi square , Man - Whitney U and Wilcoxon tests. Results: Mean state and trait anxiety of the case and control groups two weeks before and one week after intervention did not show significant difference. But the results after 3 months showed a significant difference (p<0.001).The mean severity of gastrointestinal symptoms, 2 weeks before intervention, was significantly higher in case group, but the comparison of gastrointestinal symptoms severity, 1 week after intervention, did not show any significant difference between the two groups, and 3 months after intervention a significant difference was observed in the two groups (the control group had more severe symptoms than the case group). The comparison of 6 common gastrointestinal symptoms based on weekly self-report showed that abdominal pain, eructation and distention were significantly lower in case group, but there was no significant difference between diarrhea and constipation. Conclusion: Three months Benson relaxation therapy significantly decreased the state and trait anxiety level and severity of symptoms in patients with irritable bowel syndrome.

Keywords: Benson relaxation, anxiety, irritable bowel syndrome

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