The temporal relationship of daily life stress, emotions, and bowel symptoms in irritable bowel syndrome-Diarrhea subtype: A smartphone-based experience sampling study.

ESM unveiled the dynamic relationship between bowel symptoms, stress, and emotionality. Patients with IBS-D responded to bowel symptoms with more stress and distress momentarily. Counter-intuitively, daily life activity stress appeared to ameliorate bowel symptoms, although a more rigorous study design is required to testify this claim. Psychological understanding of IBS-D is discussed.