1.   A similar scoring system is used for the anxiety component.

2.   A scoring system for the relevant factors is used based on the judgement of a group of informed people.

3.   The extent of mucosal damage was assessed using a modification of the colon macroscopic scoring system of Wallace et al.

4.   This can be explained by the absence of ulcers in their study, and by the nature of our scoring system.

5.   Because we had an interest in comparing methodologies, a second, simpler scoring system for clinical severity, as described by Costa et al, was also used.

6.   Scoring systems designed to rate the severity of an illness are being used for comparison of hospital units to identify different standards of care and to allocate resources.

7.   One such scoring system is the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation system which is designed to assess the severity of illness of patients in intensive care units.

8.   Paradoxically, the very accuracy of these scoring systems for assessing the severity of illness precludes their use for comparison and audit.

9.   It is widely assumed that these scoring systems can be used for comparisons.

10.   The second is to add factors to the scoring system that take into account the interventions that have to be performed to achieve the physiological result.