Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T21:06:02.495Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Psychological correlates of gastric and duodenal ulcer disease

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

C. Tennant ,
Kerry Goulston  and
Pauline Langeluddecke
C. Tennant*
Affiliation:
Professorial Psychiatric Unit, Royal North Shore Hospital, St Leonards, Gastroenterology Unit, Repatriation General Hospital, Concord, New South Wales, Australia
Kerry Goulston
Affiliation:
Professorial Psychiatric Unit, Royal North Shore Hospital, St Leonards, Gastroenterology Unit, Repatriation General Hospital, Concord, New South Wales, Australia
Pauline Langeluddecke
Affiliation:
Professorial Psychiatric Unit, Royal North Shore Hospital, St Leonards, Gastroenterology Unit, Repatriation General Hospital, Concord, New South Wales, Australia
*
1 Address for correspondence: Professor C. Tennant, Professorial Psychiatric Unit, Royal North Shore Hospital, St Leonards, NSW 2065, Australia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

Psychological correlates of gastric and duodenal ulcer disease were assessed in a group of somewhat older patients with ulcer disease identified by endoscopy. Associations between both ulcer types and symptom measures (anxiety and depression) seemed only to reflect severity or chronicity of gastrointestinal symptoms or the impending endoscopy procedure. Associations with ‘trait’ psychological indices may be of causal significance. Duodenal ulcer patients had higher ‘introversion’ and ‘psychoticism’ scores (on the EPQ) than controls, while gastric ulcer patients had higher psychoticism scores and ‘trait anxiety’ scores. These findings could not be attributed to confounding variables.

When the two ulcer groups were compared, the gastric ulcer group had significantly higher neuroticism, psychoticism and hostility scores which were not attributable to confounding variables. The higher depression scores in gastric ulcer patients, however, simply reflected the greater chronicity of their physical symptoms. The groups did not differ significantly on measures of trait anxiety, tension, introversion or Type A behaviour.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , May 1986 , pp. 365 - 371
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alexander, F. (1934). The influence of psychologic factors upon gastrointestinal disturbances: A symposium. Psychoanalytical Quarterly 3, 501.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alp, M. H., Court, J. H. & Grant, K. A. (1970). Personality pattern and emotional Stress in the genesis of gastric ulcer. Gut 11, 773–777.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Broom, L., Duncan-Jones, P., Jones, F. L. & McDonnell, P. (1977). Investigating Social Morbidity. Department of Sociology. Departmental Monograph 1. Research of School Social Sciences. Australian National University: Canberra.Google Scholar
Eysenck, H. J. & Eysenck, S. B. G. (1975). Manual for the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. Hodder and Stoughton: London.Google Scholar
Haynes, S. G., Feinleib, M. & Kannel, W. B. (1980). The relationship of psychosocial factors to coronary heart disease in the Framingham study. III. Eight-year incidence of coronary heart disease. American Journal of Epidemiology 111(1), 37–58.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jackson, D. N. (1967). Personality Research Form Manual. Research Psychologists Press: New York.Google Scholar
Jenkins, C. D., Rosenman, R. H. & Friedman, M. (1967). Development of an objective psychological test for the determination of the coronary-prone behaviour pattern in employed men. Journal of Chronic Diseases 20, 371–379.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knight, R. G., Waal-Manning, H. J. & Speares, G. F. (1983). Some norms and reliability data for the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory and the Zung Self-rating Depression Scale. British Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 22(4), 245–251.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Langeluddecke, P. M., Goulston, K. J. & Tennant, C. C. (1986). Type A behaviour and other psychological traits in peptic ulcer patients – a controlled study. Journal of Behavioural Medicine (in the press).Google Scholar
Lovibond, S. H. (1982). Unpublished manuscript. University of New South Wales: Sydney, Australia.Google Scholar
Lyketsos, G., Arapakis, G., Psaras, M., Photiou, I. & Blackburn, I. M. (1982). Psychological characteristics of hypertensive and ulcer patients. Journal of Psychosomatic Research 26(2), 255–262.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Magni, G., Salmi, A., Paterlini, A. & Merlo, A. (1982). Psychological distress in duodenal ulcer and acute gastroduodenitis. Digestive Diseases and Sciences 27(12), 1081–1084.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Paulus, J. W. (1979). Ulcers, heart disease and Type A behaviour. Lancet ii, 1238.Google Scholar
Piper, D. W., Greig, M., Thomas, J. & Shinners, J. (1977). Personality pattern of patients with chronic gastric ulcer. Gastroenterology 73, 444–446.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Piper, D. W., Ariotti, D., Greig, M. & Brown, R. (1980). Chronic duodenal ulcer and depression. Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology 15, 201–203.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rosenman, R. H., Brand, R. J., Jenkins, D., Friedman, M., Straus, R. & Wurm, M. (1975). Coronary heart disease in the western collaborative group study. Journal of the American Medical Association 233(8), 872–877.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Spielberger, C. D., Gorsuch, R. L. & Lushene, R. E. (1970). The State–Trait Anxiety inventory. Consulting Psychologists Press: Palo Alto, CA.Google Scholar
Weiner, H., Thaler, M., Reiser, M. F. & Mirsky, I. A. (1957). Etiology of duodenal ulcer. I. Relation of specific psychological characteristics to rate of gastric secretion (serum pepsinogen) Psychosomatic Medicine 19(1), 1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolcott, D. L., Wellis, D. K., Robertson, C. R. & Arthur, R. J. (1981). Serum gastrin and the family environment in duodenal ulcer disease. Psychosomatic Medicine 43(6), 501–507.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wolf, S., Almy, T. P., Bachrach, W. H., Spiro, H. M., Sturdevant, R. A. L. & Weiner, H. (1979). The role of Stress in peptic ulcer disease. Journal of Human Stress 5(2), 27–37.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zung, W. W. K. (1965). (Questionnaire) A self rating depression scale. Archives of General Psychiatry 12, 63–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar