Do illness perceptions mediate the relationship between bowel symptom severity and health-related quality of life in IBS patients?
Bowel symptom severity not only has a direct relationship with HRQOL, but also an indirect relationship via the patients' cognitive and emotional representations of their illness. In order to better understand this relationship, future research should not only include illness perceptions but also assess cognitive and behavioural coping responses. Clinicians wanting to improve patients' HRQOL should not only focus on the patients' symptoms, but also on their illness beliefs and coping responses.
This study suggests that the VEGF 936 C allele is associated with vascular invasion in OSCC.