The link between psychosocial factors and functional dyspepsia: an epidemiological study

To investigate the prevalence of functional dyspepsia (FD) and the psychological disorders in Chinese population and their relation.

A total of 1016 apparently healthy people (study population) randomly selected from population were interviewed. A general questionnaire, Zung self-rating depression scales (SDS), and anxiety scales (SAS) were given to each subject. Seventy-two inpatients with confirmed diagnosis of FD, 84 with organic dyspepsia, and 197 with other organic diseases were also studied.

Among the study population, 23.5% had FD and 9. 1% had disturbances of depression and/or anxiety. The prevalence of psychological disturbances in FD group (15.5%) differed significantly from that in non-FD group (7.1%, P < 0.01 ) . In the survey of inpatients, the rate of depression/anxiety in FD group (54.2%) was greater than that in organic dyspepsia group (19.0%) and other organic diseases group (28.9%), P < 0.05, and was also significantly higher than that of the FD cases in the study population (15.5%), P < 0.01. Further analysis showed that some psychosocial disturbances were risk factors of FD.

Both FD and depression/anxiety disturbances are common in China, and there is a link between them.