ObjectiveTo systematically review the correlation between acute gastrointestinal infection and IBS. MethodsLiterature search was performed in The Cochrane Library (Issue 8, 2013), PubMed, EMbase, Web of Science, CBM, CNKI, VIP and WanFang Data to collect the prospective cohort studies about association between acute gastrointestinal infection and IBS, from inception to August 2013. Two reviewers independently screened the literature according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, extracted the data, and assessed the quality using NOS, and then Meta analysis was conducted using RevMan 5.2 software. ResultsA total of 11 cohort studies involving 6 274 patients were included. According to the different follow-up times for subgroup analysis, the results of meta-analysis showed that, compared with the healthy volunteers who did not expose the acute gastrointestinal infection, the patients with acute gastroenteritis had a increase risk of irritable bowel syndrome within 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, and 2-3 years (3 months: RR=6.46, 95%CI 1.85 to 22.58, P=0.003; 6 months: RR=4.68, 95%CI 2.07 to 10.60, P=0.000 2; 12 months: RR=4.95, 95%CI 2.90 to 8.45, P < 0.000 01; 2-3 years: RR=3.11, 95%CI 2.72 to 3.56, P < 0.000 01). However, after the fifth year of acute gastroenteritis, there was no statistical significance in the risk of irritable bowel syndrome between the two groups (RR=1.69, 95%CI 0.68 to 4.24, P=0.26). ConclusionAcute gastrointestinal infection within 3 years after onset was associated with the risk of IBS. Sex, diarrhea duration, bloody purulent stools and abdominal cramps at acute stage are important risk factors of intriguing the occurrence of post-infectious IBS. The acute gastrointestinal infection and IBS are not associated in the fifth year; however, more high-quality trials are needed for further verifying the aforementioned conclusion.