ackground: Irritable bowel syndrome is a gastrointestinal dysfunction and can affect cognitive functions, which are a set of excellent brain abilities.
Aim: Comparison of cognitive functions of people with irritable bowel syndrome and normal people. The population of this study consisted of patients of the specialized gastrointestinal clinic of Milad Hospital in Isfahan in 1400. The sample size was 80 people (40 people with IBS and 40 people in the comparison group) that people with IBS were selected through purposive sampling method based on the diagnosis of gastroenterology based in the clinic and entry and exit criteria and healthy group They were purposefully selected from ordinary people based on entry and exit criteria.
Methodology: The method of this research was causal comparison of control type. In this study, a Beck Depression Inventory (Beck et al., 1996) was used to measure depression and a TMT (Ritan and Wolfson, 1993) and three Stroop software (Ridley, 1935), Wisconsin (Grant and Berg, 1993). And N-Beck (Krichner, 1985) were used to measure executive functions.
Conclusions: The results of ANKOA analysis showed that between the two groups of people with IBS and normal people in terms of cognitive inhibition (F = 329.12, P <0.001), cognitive flexibility (F = 10.15, P <0.002), working-spatial memory (F = 27.68, P <0.001) and visual-spatial attention (F = 17.31, F = 131/36, P <0.001) There is a significant difference . Based on the findings of the study, it can be concluded that irritable bowel syndrome affects cognitive functions and people with awareness of these effects, to improve their psychological symptoms in addition to physical symptoms, and physicians and psychologists for the treatment process. Better to make more specific decisions.