The use of data-mining to identify indicators of health related quality of life in patients with irritable bowel syndrome

Health-related quality of life can be adversely affected by irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). The aims of this study were to examine the health-related quality of life in a cohort of individuals with IBS and to determine which socio-demographic and IBS symptoms are independently associated with reduced health-related quality of life. Several data-mining models to determine which factors are associated with impaired health-related quality of life are considered in this study and include logistic regression, a classification tree and artificial neural networks. As well as severity of IBS symptoms, results indicate that psychological morbidity and socio-demographic factors such as marital status and employment status also have a major role to play.