Jundishapur J Chronic Dis Care. 2016 October; 5(4):e31068. Published online 2016 September 4. doi: 10.17795/jjcdc-31068. Research Article The Effect of Benson Relaxation on Quality of Life of Patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome Masoomeh Asadi, 1 Sedigheh Fayazi, 2,* Sara Adarvishi, 1 Pejman Alavinejad, 1 Mahmood Latifi, 3 and Akbar Soleimani 4 1 Research Center for Infectious Diseases of the Digestive System, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, IR Iran 2 Nursing Care Research Center in Chronic Diseases, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, IR Iran 3 Department of Health School, Diabetes Research Center, School of Health, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, IR Iran 4 Vice President of Shahrekord, Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences, Shahrekord, IR Iran * Corresponding author: Sedigheh Fayazi, Nursing Care Research Center in Chronic Diseases, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, IR Iran. Tel: +98-9161136441, E-mail: sadighe_fa@yahoo.com Received 2015 September 11; Revised 2016 April 05; Accepted 2016 April 23. Abstract Background: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is one of the most common functional disorders of the lower gastrointestinal tract that is characterized by abdominal pain and changes in bowel habits. This disorder changes the quality of life of patients. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of Benson relaxation on quality of life of patients with irritable bowel syndrome. Methods: This was a clinical trial study with 46 patients, who were randomly divided to two groups including Benson relaxation and control group. The experimental group exercised 20 minutes daily for three two months, while no intervention program was held for the control group. The data collection tools were a demographic form and SF-34 Questionnaire that were used to gather data one week before and two months after the intervention. Then data were analyzed using the SPSS version 19 software. Results: The results indicated the mean total quality of life score in test group after intervention was changed from 93.13 to 57.61 while the control group was changed from 105.65 to 96.43 (P ≤ 0.001). There was a significant difference in six dimensions of quality of life including dysphoria (P ≤ 0.001), social reaction (P ≤ 0.001), health worry (P ≤ 0.001), body image (P ≤ 0.001), interpersonal relation (P = 0.004) and activities interference (P = 0.001) between the two groups, but no significant difference was found in food abstinence (P = 0.244) and sexual worry (P = 0.830). Conclusions: The findings showed that Benson relaxation training might be an effective therapy for improving quality of life in patients with IBS. Keywords: Irritable Bowel syndrome, Quality of Life, Benson Relaxation 1. Background Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a chronic func- tional gastrointestinal disorder characterized by changes in bowel habits (diarrhea and constipation (and abdom- inal pain and bloating in the absence of chemical and pathological disorders, which fluctuates irregularly but is not completely eliminated (1, 2). The syndrome has sev- eral different names such as spastic colon, irritable colon or nervous colon (3). It affects all races and ages in both genders (4), but most studies indicate it has a higher preva- lence in females (5, 6). Also, the prevalence of IBS varies worldwide so that the rate varies from 9% and 22% in the United States and European countries (7) to its lowest rates of 4.2% and 4.4% in Northern India and Thailand, respec- tively (8). Based on population studies conducted in Iran, IBS prevalence has been reported between 3.5 and 5.8% (9). Irritable bowel syndrome is the second cause of ab- senteeism from work after the common cold as patients with the disease have three times more absent days from work when compared to other employees (10). Therefore the society defrays high expenses because of this disease so that Europeans countries have allocated an annual cost of around 6.1 million directly and 19.2 million indirectly, to this disease (11). The symptoms of irritable bowel syn- drome range from a mild illness to a severely debilitating disease. The disease may be associated with symptoms in- cluding fecal incontinence, outside signs of the colon, such as drowsiness, urinary symptoms and sexual symptoms. The symptoms are sometimes so disturbing that some pa- tients have even committed suicide due to the lack of re- covery (12). Although the exact cause of IBS is unknown, Copyright © 2016, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits copy and redistribute the material just in noncommercial usages, provided the original work is properly cited.