Background: The irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) produces a high cost to society in terms of work loss, consultations, medical tests, treatments and even unnecessary surgeries.
Aims: To evaluate the use of medical resources by IBS patients in a tertiary hospital.
Methods: Retrospective study of medical records from patients with IBS younger than 60 years old. Number of clinical studies, consultations to all specialties and number of surgeries were analyzed.
Results: Between 1987 and 1996, 98 patients age (mean) 40.8 years, were identified. Follow-up time was 33.4 months (1-243), during a mean of 22.4 studies per patient (1-82) were solicited. Prior to IBS diagnosis, 5.0 studies per patient (I-II) were required. In 87% of the cases, IBS diagnosis was established during the first visit. Each patient consulted 3.6 times/year, 44.2% for gastrointestinal symptoms and 48.6% for non-gastrointestinal symptoms. The consultations with the most demand were internal medicine (53.0%), gastroenterology (38.8%), proctology (31.6%), psychiatry (21.4%), gynecology (18.4%) and urology (13.3%). Surgical history was found in 39%, 17.3% had appendectomy and 13.3% cholecystectomy, 1.02% and 2.04% respectively were done after IBS diagnosis.
Conclusions: Although the availability of the Rome criteria for the diagnosis of IBS, these patients require an excessive quantity of studies to eliminate the possibility of organic disease, and excessive number of annual medical consultations as well. IBS patients also have a high rate of appendectomies and cholecystectomies.