[A responses to Ko's mental health questionnaire by patients with peptic ulcer disease].

The author conducted a study of personality characteristics using Ko's mental health questionnaire (KMHQ) on 279 patients who received upper gastrointestinal endoscopic examination at the Taichung Veterans General Hospital during the three months from May 12 to August 11, 1983. Those patients, 203 men and 76 women, voluntarily entered the study. Forty-four patients were randomly selected to receive the same KMHQ again 18-21 months later. The 13 subscales of the KMHQ were confirmed to have a good value of the test-retest reliability (r = 0.419 to 0.796, p < 0.001). Based on the findings of endoscopic examination, 279 patients were divided into two groups: the experimental group of 104 patients (those with gastric ulcer, duodenal ulcer and mixed abnormal findings) and the control group of 175 patients (those with normal findings, superficial gastritis and duodenitis). A comparison of the 13 subscales of the KMHQ between these two groups of patients revealed no significant differences in the mean scores except that a greater obsessionality index (scale VII) was seen in the experimental group than in the control group (t = 2.35, p < 0.05). In conclusion, peptic ulcer patients with positive endoscopic findings have the characteristic of significant greater obsessionality according to KMHQ.