| Abstract: | Abstract. Objectives. To compare personality characteristics in duodenal ulcer patients and patients with ulcer-like dyspepsia from the primary health sector with duodenal ulcer patients from a hospital and to evaluate the relationship of the personality characteristics to the course of the diseases. Design. A prospective study using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) with retesting of a subgroup of patients after a median observation period of 14 months. Setting. Departments of Medical and Surgical Gastroenterology, Hvidovre University Hospital, and the primary health sector in Roskilde County, Denmark. Subjects. Sixty hospital patients with duodenal ulceration and 17 patients with duodenal ulceration plus 2 5 patients with ulcer-like dyspepsia from the primary health sector. Main outcome measures. MMPI scores. Results. The hospital patients differed from the two other groups of patients by having higher scores of depression and anxiety (P < 0.05). Twenty-eight of the patients were retested with MMPI. Contrary to the patients with persisting complaints, abnormal personality characteristics disappeared in patients without complaints (P < 0.05-0.001). Conclusions. The results indicate that abnormal personality characteristics in patients with functional and organic upper dyspepsia are consequential rather than causal factors. |
