Chronic constipation diagnosis and treatment evaluation: the “CHRO.CO.DI.T.E.” study

BMC Gastroenterology

Table 3 PAC-SYM total score and abdominal, rectal and faecal symptoms subscales: mean values ± SD in all patients and in IBS-C, FC and NRC subgroups

	ALL PATIENTS	IBS-C	FC	NRC	p-value¹
Total score	1.6 ± 0.70	1.75 ± 0.70*	1.56 ± 0.68	1.31 ± 0.70	p < 0.0001
Abdominal symptoms	1.53 ± 0.88	1.91 ± 0.74#§	1.37 ± 0.88	1.19 ± 0.86	p < 0.0001
Rectal symptoms	0.88 ± 0.86	0.98 ± 0.92	0.85 ± 0.83	0.70 ± 0.78	ns
Faecal symptoms	2.09 ± 0.91	2.09 ± 0.88	2.13 ± 0.92	1.74 ± 0.88^	p < 0.01

IBS-C irritable bowel syndrome with constipation, FC functional constipation, NRC patients do not accomplish Rome III criteria
¹ p values are referred to the differences between IBS-C, FC and NRC groups, in particular * p < 0.0001 vs FC and NRC; # p < 0.0001 vs NRC; § p < 0.05 vs FC; ^ p < 0.01 vs IBS-C and FC; ns: not statistically significant

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