Maladjustment to Academic Life and Employment Anxiety in University Students with Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Jun Tayama; Naoki Nakaya; Toyohiro Hamaguchi; Tatsuo Saigo; Atsushi Takeoka; Toshimasa Sone; Shin Fukudo; Susumu Shirabe

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0129345

Maladjustment to Academic Life and Employment Anxiety in University Students with Irritable Bowel Syndrome

PLoS One. 2015 Jun 17;10(6):e0129345. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0129345. eCollection 2015.

Authors

Jun Tayama¹, Naoki Nakaya², Toyohiro Hamaguchi³, Tatsuo Saigo⁴, Atsushi Takeoka⁵, Toshimasa Sone⁶, Shin Fukudo⁷, Susumu Shirabe⁴

Affiliations

¹ Graduate School of Education, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan; Center for Health and Community Medicine, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan.
² Tohoku Medical Megabank Organization, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan.
³ Department of Occupational Therapy, School of Health and Social Services, Saitama Prefectural University, Saitama, Japan.
⁴ Center for Health and Community Medicine, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan.
⁵ Unit of Preventive Medicine, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan.
⁶ Department of Rehabilitation, Faculty of Health Science, Tohoku Fukushi University, Sendai, Japan.
⁷ Department of Behavioral Medicine, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan.

Abstract

The present study tested our hypothesis that university students with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) may experience less satisfactory academic lives than those of students without IBS. We also verified the hypothesis that university students with IBS might have higher employment anxiety than students without IBS might. We conducted a cross-sectional study of 1,686 university students. Presence or absence of IBS was assessed via the Rome III Questionnaire. Two original items were used to evaluate academic life. The prevalence rates of IBS with diarrhea, IBS with constipation, mixed IBS, and unsubtyped IBS in the study population were 5%, 2%, 10%, and 3%, respectively. Regarding academic life, the proportions of participants who experienced maladjustment and employment anxiety were 29% and 50%, respectively. After adjusting for age, sex, and faculty, the odds ratios for maladjustment and employment anxiety were significantly higher in students who screened positively, relative to those who screened negatively, for IBS (OR, 1.62; 95% CI, 1.24-2.21; OR, 2.16; 95% CI, 1.68-2.81, respectively). In conclusion, maladjustment and anxiety over future employment were higher in university students with IBS relative to those without.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Adult
Anxiety / complications
Anxiety / epidemiology*
Constipation / complications
Constipation / epidemiology
Cross-Sectional Studies
Diarrhea / complications
Diarrhea / epidemiology
Employment
Female
Humans
Irritable Bowel Syndrome / complications*
Irritable Bowel Syndrome / epidemiology*
Male
Odds Ratio
Prevalence
Risk Factors
Students
Surveys and Questionnaires
Universities
Young Adult

Grants and funding

This study was supported by grants from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) for the Grant–in–Aid for Scientific Research (C) (No. 24590890) (https://kaken.nii.ac.jp/d/p/24590890.ja.html). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.