Rome III Diagnostic Criteria for Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)
Official Rome III criteria for the diagnosis of irritable bowel syndrome.
Recurrent abdominal pain or discomfort, 3 days per month in the last 3 months (12 weeks), associated with ≥2 of the criteria below. The criteria are fulfilled with symptoms onset 6 months prior to diagnosis.
Advice
The Rome III criteria are helpful in classifying patients and for determining potential therapies.
Management
We are unaware of validated management algorithms using the Rome criteria.
Critical Actions
IBS is a ‘rule-out’ diagnosis, which is to say all other possibilities must be ruled out first.