Background and Objective: The aim of this study is to determine the relationship between personality traits and perceived stress with the mediation of resilience in patients with irritable bowel syndrome.

Materials and Methods: The present study is applied in terms of purpose and structural equation correlation in terms of implementation. The statistical population included all patients with digestive diseases (irritable bowel symptoms) referred to the Gastroenterology Clinic of Vali Asr International Hospital (AJ) in Tabriz. Purposive sampling was performed including 100 patients with gastrointestinal diseases based on the inclusion criteria (people with a history of digestive diseases, age between 25-45 years and at least a high school diploma) and exclusion criteria (people with other mental and physical diseases, having family problems and unwillingness to cooperate). For data collection, the Cohen et al. (1983) Perceived Stress Questionnaire, the Neo 5-Factor Personality Traits Questionnaire and Connor and Davidson (2003) Resilience Questionnaire were used. The collected data were analyzed using the structural equation modeling method. This article has the ethics code IR.IAU.TABRIZ.REC.1401.102.

Results: The results show that the indirect paths of neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, and agreeableness and perceived stress were confirmed by the mediation of resilience (Z>±1.96), and the indirect path of conscientiousness and perceived stress by the mediation of resilience was not significant (Z<±1.96). In fact, the theoretical model of the mediating role of resilience in the relationship between personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, and agreeableness) and perceived stress in gastrointestinal patients is confirmed at the 0.05 level and with a probability of 95%. Also, the variables of personality traits and resilience are simultaneously able to explain 31.2 percent of the variance of perceived stress.

Conclusion: The results showed that personality traits, mediated by resilience, play a significant role in explaining perceived stress in patients with irritable bowel syndrome; such that extraversion, openness to experience, and greater agreeableness and lower neuroticism were associated with higher resilience and lower perceived stress. Therefore, resilience can be considered as an important mechanism in explaining the link between personality and perceived stress in these patients.

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