The objective of this study was to make a comparison between chronic superficial gastritis and gastric ulcer patients regarding stress responses, anger expression and alexithymia. The subjects included 100 patients with chronic superficial gastritis and 40 patients with gastric ulcer confirmed by gastroscopy. Stress responses were measured by the Stress Response Inventory(SRI) and anxiety, depression, somatization and hostility subscales of the Symptom Checklist-90-revised(SCL-90-R). Anger expression and anger suppression were assessed by the Anger Expression Scale. The level of alexithymia was assessed by the Toronto Alexithymia Scale(TAS). Multiple regression analysis showed that the patients with chronic gastritis scored significantly higher on tension subscale and somatization subscale of the SRI, and anxiety subscale of the SCL-90-R than those with gastric ulcer. However, no significant differences were found in the score of anger expression and anger suppression subscales and total score of TAS between the two groups. In chronic gastritis patients, women scored significantly higher on somatization subscale of the SRI than men, whereas in gastric ulcer patients, men scored significantly higher on somatization subscale of the SRI than women. These results suggest that chronic gastritis patients are more likely to have higher level of stress responses and higher susceptibility to stress than gastric ulcer patients. In addition, in chronic gastritis patients, women are more likely to somatize than men, but in gastric ulcer patients, men are more likely to somatize than women. However, there were no differences between the two groups in anger expression, anger suppression and alexithymia.ope
