Gastrointestinal symptoms

    Last Updated: September 2, 2025

    “Gastrointestinal symptoms” is a composite outcome capturing overall digestive discomfort. Researchers often score it with validated tools like the Gastrointestinal Symptom Rating Scale (GSRS) or Visual Analog Scale (VAS).

    Summary

    What are gastrointestinal symptoms?

    Gastrointestinal symptoms broadly describe patient-reported gastrointestinal-related subjective sensations — bloating, nausea, diarrhea, etc. — that have been pooled into a single metric.

    Such metrics, which include the Gastrointestinal Symptom Rating Scale (GSRS) [1][2][3][4] or Visual Analog Scale (VAS) [5], are commonly used in research on conditions like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). However, they are also used in dietary research and studies on sports nutrition.