OBJECTIVES: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is the most common functional gastrointestinal disorder. Cohort studies have shown its association with other conditions such as polycystic ovary syndrome (POS), fibromyalgia, migraine, and psychiatric disorders like depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Our objective was to explore these association using the nation-wide administrative database of the Colombian Ministry of Health.

METHODS: We accessed the SISPRO database for years 2018-2022 using ICD-10 codes for IBS and each of the diagnoses of interest, for all ages. Using prevalence ratios (PR) we compared prevalence of each condition in males and females with and people without each diagnosis.

RESULTS: 1,423,175 persons (females 981,454; 68.9%) were registered with the diagnosis of IBS. The highest prevalence, both in males and females, is in the 20-39 age-group. Total number of patients diagnosed (and PR) for each condition were POS 430,771 (2.93); fibromyalgia 107,380 (7.34); migraine 2,084,123 (3.24); depression 946,499 (3.04); anxiety 280.722 (3.98); schizophrenia 217,341 (1.34); and PTSD 29,409 (2.28).

CONCLUSIONS: Both IBS and all the other conditions we studied (except schizophrenia) have higher prevalence in women. IBS is a fairly common disease, and is statistically associated with all the conditions we studied. A common limitation of real-world data is the difficulty to establish causality. The association with POS suggests common etiologic factors; with psychiatric conditions, our results are similar to those found in the literature. The link with fibromyalgia merits more research.