Andersson et al. BMC Public Health 2011, 11:215 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/11/215 Page 3 of 7 Excluded after randomization (n=1) Applied for the study (n=193) Completed screening and submitted written consent (N=109) Included for interview (n=103) Interviewed (n=98) Included and randomized (N=86) Treatment condition (n=43) Internet chat forum (n=43) Participated in post assessment (n=38) Participated in post assessment (n=43) Participated in 3 month follow-up (n=38) Participated in 12 month follow-up (n=37) Recieved CBT Participated in 12 month follow-up (n=39) Excluded (n=84) Did not complete screening or did not submit written consent Excluded (n=6) Symptom debut after 50:2 Symptom since less than 2 yrs: 1 MADRS-S>30:1 Not diagnoses by md: 1 Other GI disease: 1 Excluded (n=5) Unreachable: 3 Declined to participate: 2 Excluded (n=12) Other GI disease: 2 Alarm symptoms present: 1 Suicide ideation: 1 Did not meet Rome III-criteria: 6 Declined: 2 Figure 1 Flowchart of study participants. (no figure legend). were based on the time spent on the internet discussion forum. The cost estimations in the treatment group were based on the self-reported time the participants spent reading the treatment material and performing home- work exercises plus the time spent on the discussion forum, Analysis The analysis was conducted in accordance with the intention to treat principle, which means that all partici- pants were included in analysis regardless of adherence to treatment. Missing data were imputed using the last observation carried forward method. The statistical